Last week, my daughter came home from
school and gave me a lesson on fire safety.
Listening to her talk about escape
plans; stopping, dropping and rolling; and the importance of changing
batteries on smoke detectors brings back memories of little me
nagging my parents about the exact same things.
However, what is dramatically different
from my early days in school is that my little daughter not only has
fire drills these days; she has lockdown drills.
Yes, lockdown drills.
I remember my heart just about stopped
the very first time she told me about the lockdown drill. She was in
junior kindergarten at the time. She described to me how she and her
little friends must go to a specific corner in her classroom, crouch
down very low, and keep very quiet. (I am thankful for her teacher
for glossing over why she and her little friends must do this.)
What has the world come to that a
four-year-old has to practice hiding quietly in the corner?
This year, one of her instructors
mentioned to the kids that someone might enter the school with a gun
(I am pretty sure it was a passing comment, not meant to be fixated
upon). Unfortunately, my daughter naturally jumps to the worst
possible scenario for most things. So of course, she told me all
about how bullets go through walls and windows, and that someone
might be coming to shoot her.
I hugged her, then we talked about it,
and I told her that the chances of this ever happening was extremely,
extremely, slim. I told her the school was very safe, and there were
lots of people to keep any bad person who wants to enter out.
I never really know what to do in
situations like these. I want to have important and sometimes scary
discussions with her. I do not want her to bottle her fears. On the
other hand, I feel that by talking about it too much will just be a
constant reminder of her fears. I asked her regular teacher what to
do, and she told me to talk about it IF she brings it up in
conversation.
Luckily for me, by the end of the day,
my daughter, more or less, erased the lockdown drill from her memory,
which is much better than the week long nightmares that resulted from
last year's fire drill.
Too bad I cannot erase the lockdown
drill from my memory. I just want to pick her up, hold her tight,
and possibly just start homeschooling her.
I realize that I cannot and should not
shelter or hide my child from all the evils in this world, but I
would like her to feel that everything is made out of magic,
rainbows, candies, ribbons and happy endings for just a bit longer.
