- My son, who's 8, had his first shooter drill when he was only 3.
- Our school lets parents know about a drill ahead of time so we can prepare for it.
My son thinks lockdown drills are to practice what to do if there's a stranger or an animal in the building. I refuse to correct him.
He's 8.
He doesn't remember the first drill he did. He was 3. It was the day after the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. But I remember it.
That night at dinner, my heart broke as he shook, visibly scared when we mentioned the word "drill." The next year, after a surprise drill, he was worried about bad guys getting into our house.
Last month, the drill barely registered, signaling a new normal: Preparing to avoid getting shot at school had become routine. My heart broke all over again.
Violence in schools seems routine
After the shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, last year, some teachers elsewhere in the US said the violence hadn't seemed to register with their students.
A high-school teacher from Charlotte, North Carolina, told the Associated Press that after the shooting in Parkland in 2018, her students labeled themselves "the lockdown generation."
Vox reported last year that lockdown drills were "used in more than 95 percent of schools and mandated in more than 40 states." But how they're run varies widely.
At my son's public school, we're fortunate that parents received notice ahead of last month's drill. While there was a law-enforcement presence at the school, our district says it doesn't conduct "any type of reenactment that employs an individual acting as an assailant, implying or displaying a weapon, or simulating the sound of gunfire."
For that, I am grateful.
I want my child to be safe
In 2020, the American Academy of Pediatrics urged schools to stop conducting high-intensity active-shooter drills, saying they can leave kids more traumatized than prepared. It recommended that schools conduct lockdown drills or active-shooter drills as they do other safety drills — after all, fire drills don't simulate real fires, and tornado drills don't simulate real tornados, but kids still learn what they're supposed to do in those emergencies.
Like any other parent, I want my kids to be safe at school. I also want them to be able to focus on learning and making friends instead of on whether one of their classmates might bring a gun to school.
Unlike with fires, earthquakes, or tornados, we can change the circumstances that require lockdown and active-shooter drills in the first place.
In addition to strengthening background checks and banning some types of firearms — policy solutions often in the headlines after mass shootings — we can require safe firearm storage and implement extreme-risk-protection orders, which allow authorities to temporarily take firearms from people thought to be at a high risk of harming themselves or other people.
To ensure all children are safe from gun violence — whether it takes place in school, on the street, or in a public park — we can invest in evidence-based community interventions.
Beyond gun-violence-prevention policy, we can ensure all children and teens have access to quality mental-health care. We can reject fearmongering politics and invest in the social-emotional development of our children, giving them tools to self-regulate their behavior and handle their emotions healthily.
As I write, watching the news of yet another shooting, this time at Michigan State University, I know my son will someday understand that he doesn't have lockdown drills because an animal might get into his suburban elementary school. I pray he doesn't learn from experience.