The question keeping parents and teachers awake in the US: How to prepare a child for a school shooting?

When Mariana decided to be a teacher, she “never” thought she would have to teach children to find a safe place in case of a possible shooting. You now admit that anyone who wants to practice this profession in the United States must do so be willing to “give down your life for your students“.

So far this year, at least 42 firearms incidents in schools across the country, resulting in 17 deaths and 32 injuries, according to data from the organization Everytown for Gun Safety. The last one, at The Covenant school in Nashville (Tennessee), caused the death of six people two weeks ago, three of them minors.

Mariana, who used a fictitious name because she is not authorized to speak publicly about the issue, is a teacher of 3- and 4-year-olds at a Washington school who participates in drills to prepare for this situation.

The parent-teacher dilemma

In them the teacher receives indications on how to act, but lacks the training to deal with the subject with the students. Mariana chooses not to tell them what a shooting is, as she believes that being so young, even though “they might understand it,” they don’t have “that maturity” to process it.

The drills expose children to this idea before the parents themselves can, Ayesha, the mother of a 6-year-old girl to whom she has spoken to about all kinds of emergencies, including shootings, told EFE.

Your daughter knows of two schools that have been attacked and knows what to do if it happens. Although Ayesha, who lives on the outskirts of the US capital, believes that, being African-American, the girl is “more likely” to suffer racial violence than this type of incident.

“Teaching a 6-year-old girl about gun safety in a house where there are no guns and no one around who has guns doesn’t make sense. Is safety knowing how to handle a gun? No,” she said.

Six out of ten Americans (58%) say they have told their children or other family members about it, according to a survey released this week by the NGO Kaiser Family Foundation.

For parenting expert Eirene Heidelberger, the only reason to talk about it is if the school participates in such drills: “If not, why instill fear in your child about a place where he spends seven hours a day?”

In his opinion, children under 6 ‘don’t need to hear about school shootings’. From that age they are already prepared, especially since they start being exposed to television and social networks. And at age 12, broaching the subject becomes imperative.

Parental responsibility increases when there are weapons in the house. Heidelberger stressed that both parental figures – if that’s the case – should go hand in hand and be communicative with their children, since a 2-year-old already understands the expressions “no” and “don’t touch.” “

However, parents like Manuel Oliver question the point of a conversation about school shootings, unlike other problems like drugssomething that a young person can be prevented from.

Oliver lost his son Joaquin in a February 2018 shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, South Florida, where 17 people were killed.

“What would be the indications of that conversation?How was Joaquín going to survive that day?? What do we need, that our 17-year-old children also have a gun in their belts?” he told EFE.

For him, education must go further and teach children to change this reality: “I categorically refuse parents to believe that we have failed and that we can do nothing but resign ourselves,” he said.

Oliver’s only regret is “not getting so involved” in the cause before his son’s death. Together with his wife, Patricia, he created the organization Change the referencewith which they launch messages to raise awareness of the population such as the campaign launched this week: “Send your children to war, it’s safer than sending them to school”.

This initiative’s “#NewRecruits” series of announcements is intended to spread the word that nearly 193,000 children and adolescents have been killed by guns since 1963 in the United States, a number that is four times the number of American soldiers who have lost their lives in all wars since combined.

Source: EFE