Last week school was cancelled because of a girl who supposedly flew from Florida to Colorado, bought a shot gun and threatened to shoot up a school. They say she was obsessed with the 20th anniversary of the Columbine shooting. I say supposedly because quite a few things don’t add up. I’m not a conspiracy nut, I just like all the facts and there don’t seem to be very many actual ones. But that’s a post for another day. It also brings me to the topic for today. How do I not obsess about the safety of my children while they are at school? We have bullies, drugs, and wackos that want to shoot up schools. It’s all a bit much too handle.
As a mom I feel it’s important to keep the communication lines open with my kids. As a younger mom I made the mistake of not explaining what happened on 9-11. I remember that day clearly. I had just dropped off my daughter at school. I’ve always been kind of a news nerd and enjoyed listening to talk radio (I have since I was about 17), so I had it on in the car. What I was hearing didn’t make any sense. I thought maybe someone was reading the “War of the Worlds” it just wasn’t fitting together. When I got home I turned on the news just as the second plane hit the tower. I immediately shut it off because my two younger daughters were at home. I called the school and they said they are in lock down. No one in no one out. The time came to pick up my daughter from school. I tried to act as normal as possible. The tv was on, and she saw the planes crashing into the twin towers. How could she not? It seemed like it played over and over again. She was upset. I asked her what she thought happened? She said the pilot must not have been looking where he was going. I told her that was a good possibility. Accidents happen. Well, the next day at school a boy told her different. She came home crying and upset. He told her a bad guy used a knife to cut open the pilot’s throat and killed him and crashed the plane. Way too much for a 6 year old process, not to mention this new mom.
Now I live in an age where talking about these bad things seems to take place more often. I am also grateful to be a part of Damsel in Defense. While the Safe Hearts (
https://vimeo.com/172159038 ) collection doesn’t have a book about talking with your kids about school violence, it does have the tools you need for having “kid”-versations on grooming, pornography, body boundaries, gun safety etc.. Being able to talk with our kids about these subjects and others is very empowering. Helping a kid find their voice in a tricky situation is important. Mom can’t be there as back up all the time. But when we talk about the scary things going on, our kids know we have their back. I found this great article you might enjoy
One of my kids is in high school. The worry of school shootings is very real. School has been in lock down over active threats. One time my kids drove to school only to find local law enforcement telling them to go home. Having a bullet proof shield that slips into a backpack has offered some peace of mind. Here is my YouTube video demonstrating the bulletproof sleeve https://youtu.be/RwzKhij0jCU
Protecting our families has become more and more difficult as we fight the adversary on so many different fronts. Open communication and teaching them to put on their physical as well as spiritual armor is what it takes to get us through.
Ephesians 6:11–18
https://www.lds.org/study/friend/2016/06/the-whole-armor-of-god?lang=eng
concealedcarrykim.blog 