Don’t tell your kids anything about Sandy Hook
Could lockdown drills have saved the children at Sandy Hook Elementary School? I have no idea. Indeed, I have no idea what kind of drilling those kindergartners, just four months into their school careers, may have got. Maybe the first drill was planned for January. But I doubt any drilling of 5- and 6-year-olds would have made a difference.
I know that Rebekah is not perfectly safe. I know that if a deranged gunman decided to mow down all the children in her kindergarten classroom, I couldn’t save her. And those parents and teachers in Newtown shouldn’t waste one second thinking they could have saved those kids and teachers. The world doesn’t work like that.
Here’s what we can control: as long as our children are alive, we can refuse to terrorize them with worst-case scenarios. We can decline to let a random act of violence goad us into treating Connecticut as if it were Gaza, Afghanistan, or Mali. I understand that there are parents in the world who have to teach their children about bomb shelters. But I don’t, not yet. My daughter is just five years old, and her school is as safe as we can make it without imprisoning ourselves in our own fear. My heart breaks for what happened 25 miles away; I’ve cried twice already today. But I’ve done it far from my children, who are still very young and, yes, innocent. So please: Don’t tell them a goddamned thing.
Blowback
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I agree, but that doesn’t mean that you don’t prepare the adults. I love Tennessee and I love my conceal and carry laws. I had a “what if” moment that day. When it happened I was in my daughter’s kindergarten class.
melle1228 on December 16, 2012 at 10:14 PM
I concur. Teach them what to do in a hypothetical situation but don’t tell them any details about this or any horrific specific incident.
HotAirian on December 16, 2012 at 10:17 PM
i agree that we shouldn’t tell kids about this incident, it would really scare them. although if they are old and mature enough to handle a little of this information, they can be told something like “there was a bad man who went into another school and hurt some kids, but don’t be scared because the teachers at your school will work very hard to keep you safe.” well it just depends on the maturity level of the child, i can’t name any specific age where the child should be told.
but about lockdown drills, i think they should still happen, even for the youngest kids. because fire drills still happen for the youngest kids. kids are aware that sometimes, bad things happen in the world.
they should still do lockdown drills, but you don’t have to be very specific about why you’re doing it. just say “on the very low chance that a bad person comes into the school, we can hide and be safe and everything will be okay.” obviously don’t say “we need to do a lockdown drill in case a person with a gun comes in and starts shooting and killing all you kids like what just happened in connecticut” …yeah telling kids all that is clearly not a good idea. in a fire drill, teachers don’t say “we’re doing a fire drill just in case there are flames and smoke everywhere and you may inhale smoke or get burned by the flames.” they say “we’re doing a fire drill because if there is a fire, we can quickly escape and won’t get hurt.”
Sachiko on December 16, 2012 at 10:30 PM
Loss of innocence will come soon enough – leave them be.
OldEnglish on December 16, 2012 at 10:31 PM
Tbh I wish we all ‘knew’ less about this cluster-f.
We’ve been carpet bombed by every single media outlet with commentary from journalists, politicians, pundits, and useful idiots.
No one has made the very obvious point that good and evil are, in fact, real concepts. They are regularly actualized despite leftist wish-casting.
It’s like nothing horrific has ever happened before.
Barky’s out there fake crying about dead children when he has personally signed off on drone strikes that he knows would involve dead children in the collateral damage. He green-lit the missions knowing he’d end up slotting kids. Acceptable loss.
As for the rest of these attention whores. Well. Please.
:X
CorporatePiggy on December 16, 2012 at 10:38 PM
Definitely, little one’s don’t need to know. But he is wrong about training adults to prepare. There is plenty that can and could have been done.
I just read a post by Karl Denninger in his Market Ticker Blog where he discusses solutions and a very insightful posting on the Truth About Guns Blog by a law enforcement officer. Hotair might want to consider linking to them.
RAN58 on December 16, 2012 at 10:42 PM
Right he is.
Meanwhile, some people glom onto great tragedies to give their own lives drama.
Avoid them.
And avoid turning everyday life into a prison camp to try to be “safe”.
Random psychos are like storms. You can’t avoid them all.
Or always stop them. Or be perfectly “safe”.
Just live and hope the next mass-murderous pyscho’s mother isn’t as crazy as he is.
profitsbeard on December 16, 2012 at 10:52 PM
Personally, I’ve tried to tell myself as little as well. I probably wouldn’t have ever clicked a link on the story if everyone around me wasn’t talking about it.
Getting all obsessed and worked up and curious and clicking all the different links and watching the updates just feeds the celebrity murderer feedback loop that encourages the next killing spree, to say nothing of keeping alive the Call For National Action.
You notice there was a long lull in this kind of thing after 9/11? That’s because the all-encompassing grown-up serious horror of that event obliterated adolescent solipsism that sparks these whiny, cowardly attention grabs. For a good long while, the culture had a strong sense of perspective that penetrated down to the nuts.
HitNRun on December 16, 2012 at 11:08 PM
I told my 10- and 13-year-olds what happened, and why. A bunch of helpless kids (and equally helpless adults) in a “gun-free zone” is like a giant sign for psycho killer wannabes: “Easy targets here!”
If they were 5 or 6 years younger, I probably wouldn’t tell them, but they’re old enough to understand and not freak out. And the sooner they start making connections between well-intentioned-yet-stupid laws and tragic consequences, the better.
Splashman on December 17, 2012 at 12:42 AM
I agree with this advice, but kids can be pretty aware of things. I remember my horror when my cute little six year old asked me “mommy? Why is everyone so mad at Monica Loo-in-skee?”
I was pretty mad at Bill Clinton over what my kid was picking up from tv news.
juliesa on December 17, 2012 at 12:43 AM
First, I understand his reasoning with regards to the age of the most inocent amongst us.
Secondly, I am the parent of my children not him. I and my wife will determine what or when to tell our children anything. Only the parents of their own children gets to make that call. Each parent faces these issues all too often nowadays.
My children are of the age now where we dicussed this indepth, education is power especially in these situations. Some of us faced this on that fateful day in 2001 when muslim physcos flew planes into buildings. Talk about media overload, kids couldn’t escape it. Even nickelodian(s) covered the damn thing.
Lastly, let me tell anyone willing to listen to a nobody on a blog. Tell your kids you Love them each and everyday for none of us know when the last time will be. Find comfort knowing that the last thing you said was “I Love You”.
May God bless the families. God needed a classroom of bright smiling faces and their loving teachers in Heaven.
D-fusit on December 17, 2012 at 5:41 AM
There are already conspiracy nuts (read: Paulnuts) that are sayign this is all a conspiracy. They also point to the Batman movie shooting and say that they are linked in some grand conspiracy. Really?
Smack them upside the head and remind them that the X-Files is only a TV show and Metal Gear Solid is only a video game series.
DethMetalCookieMonst on December 17, 2012 at 7:16 AM
I didn’t tell my 5 and 9 year olds anything. They have enough stress at school already. BUT the freaking school is having a moment of silence this morning and all the classes are going to talk about what happened. This really pisses me off. I’m in no way trying to shield my kids from reality, but there is no reason they need to be turned paranoid in elementary school. Of course the school system thinks it knows what’s better for kids than parents.
ReaganWasRight on December 17, 2012 at 9:45 AM
Right. Because it was a gun free zone. In a place where the teachers were allowed to defend their little charges from bad men, they might have had a chance.
We can choose to live as men who defend their own and not herd animals who must be protected by our betters.
GWB on December 17, 2012 at 9:57 AM