Are your children aware of the news?

[peggyfromwastate]

Oh yeah. Lockdown drills are very common. Code red, code blue, tornado, earthquake, fire... They drill all these pretty regularly.

My kids were told "code red" means there's a bad person IN the school and they bar the doors, get away from windows, and huddle in the center if the room under desks. And they practice this, come home freaked out, and then we have to discuss how it's a very unlikely scenario.

I don't know what lockdown drills they do here-- those were the ones from back east (minus the earthquake). Here I know they had already drilled several times on earthquake and in the elem school at least once on the lockdown.

[peggyfromwastate]

Good for them! I think drills are a good thing. My mom used to say they did duck and cover nuclear war drills in school.

We had a shooting in my high school, and had no clue what to do. We just ran until we got to the top floor of the school. We were in lockdown for a few hours, and had no clear instructions nor communication with anyone from the classroom my friend and I hid in. We could have used drills! And that was close to 20 years ago.

Alison that's very scary about the shooting.

[alison]

In retrospect, it could have been a lot worse than it was. No one was killed, thankfully, but it does go down in history as one of the first school shootings. I think drills are great, regardless of how monotonous and routined they become. In fact, I think if you instinctively know what to do in an emergency, you are far better off when something happens.

[MrsK]

Good for them! I think drills are a good thing. My mom used to say they did duck and cover nuclear war drills in school.

We had a shooting in my high school, and had no clue what to do. We just ran until we got to the top floor of the school. We were in lockdown for a few hours, and had no clear instructions nor communication with anyone from the classroom my friend and I hid in. We could have used drills! And that was close to 20 years ago.

It's not that I object to the kids knowing what to do. Personally, I freeze when there is a crisis and I wouldn't know what to do. So I'm glad that someone has a plan for my children. I just hate that we live in a "duck and cover" society where even preschoolers have learn how to shield themselves from random violent attacks in their classrooms. Fire and tornados are natural occurrances. School shootings are not. We should not have a society where preschoolers have to worry about these things.

[Deebs]

I wonder if your kids even know what these drills are for. Our preschool makes it fun - its a safety drill, but is kind of like hide and seek and Simon says combined. We're so fortunate that our preschool has a close relationship with our police department. The kids hide wherever their teachers say (it's been the bathroom, storage closet, in a tree that closes on itself outside), and stay quiet until one of our police officers presents a badge. The kids all basically then tackle that officer. Anytime my son has had one of these drills it is one of those "best days" at preschool. Obviously, it's not quite the same at the elementary school, but my very anxious daughter is not frightened by them.

[MrsK]

Just dropped the boys off at school for the first time since Newtown today. It was weird. I brought cupcakes for K1's class. I was jumpy. The teachers were jumpy. K1 could sense it. He kept hugging me and kissing me and asking me to pick him up. Made me 20 minutes late to my dentist appointment but how could I say no?

[mit_iv]

Seems like the Mr. Rogers link has disappeared and now there's a new location: http://www.fredrogers.org/FRC/par-tragic-events.html

Here are some additional resources I found useful:
http://www.pbs.org/parents/talkingwi...s/talking.html
http://reviewsmylife.com/death-and-other-dastardly-ds/

[MrsK]

Thanks for posting, mit_tv. Why don't you stop by the Introductions forum and tell us a little about yourself. We'd love to get to know you.