Do a quick search of news on the subject, and there are apparently quite a few places that are putting middle school and high school aged kids through a lot of unnecessary trauma with training that goes way beyond a basic lockdown scenario.  (i.e. run/hide/fight training)

It doesn't sound like your kids elementary school did that, but introducing the "hiding from a bad guy" concept doesn't strike me as an anxiety-free way to handle it for kids that age.

Somebody reference stories of elementary aged kids being trained to throw stuff at intruders in their classroom... that would definitely be over the line in my opinon for that age group, and it trains kids in a completely useless set of behaviors anyway.

My daughter is 3 and I worry greatly about her growing up in this country because of things like this.

It's sad and there should be a better way than to wait and hide.

Doesn't it get exhausting trying to defind your points/opinions?   

Life can truly be a shit show, unfortunately I'd want my son to be exposed to drills earlier than later.  Same with fire/tornado drills.

Some people (generally speaking) raise their kids to think life is a fairytale when they are little and then real life becomes a rude awakening.  They shelter they kid from the news, what they hear, feed them full of strategic lies - I feel this handicaps their prep for reality.

Yes of course there is a fine line with all of this and the impact it has on young brains, but stranger-danger, bad guy drills, fire/tornado - I'm all for that stuff as crappy as it is to put em through it.  The sooner they can think for themselves and not looking for direction the better.

Let's be careful or this is will spin into a full blown don't let your kid play shooting games debate...then it will spin into Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny.

1. If I ever lived anywhere this was a valid concern, I would immediately move somewhere else. Wondering every day if some psycho is going to come around shooting the place up? No thanks.

2. If someone in my kid's school had access to a weapon, I would want to know exactly what the weapon was, how it was secured and whom had access to it. That's a serious issue.

Ahh, so if you ever want to shoot up a kindergarten class, make sure to check the bathroom. Thanks for letting all the good guys on the internet know.

Pretty crazy, when I was in kindergarten I was mostly just worried about not peeing my jeans

There are people with serious mental health issues everywhere.  As long as there is a lack of gun control, this is a valid concern in the US.

 

Only certain states allow guns in schools. I think Texas actually wants to arm the teachers. Like have them strapped while teaching. Craziness.

Do they still do tornado drills, or do you guys not get tornadoes up your way?
 

No tornado drills in NYC. Just fire and lock-down drills.

No tornado drills in MD either.

Ah yes, the ol' "life is tough, get used to it".

I feel if anyone had half a brain, everyone would try to make life for themselves and others as safe and happy as possible. Or are you so far removed that you can't help but thrive in a society where maniacs with guns set out to kill and that it's just on everybody else to not get shot?
 

I recall that we had an EF2 in Western MD in 1995 or so. We just sat in front of the picture window marveling at how wild it was. So much for being prepared and well-informed.
 

"Everyone has a plan till they get punched in the mouth" - M. Tyson.

Well, tornado drills when I was a kid consisted of getting down on your knees in the hallway and covering your head with your hands.   Almost like they recycled "duck and cover".

So staring out the window probably wasn't much more unsafe.



 

Yeah, our tornado drills were definitely just duck-and-cover in the hallway.  

We did have a small tornado hop over our school one time and wrap the baseball bleachers around the backstop.


The hallway is probably the safest place you can be in a school for tornado of any size, though, since there is so much potential debris in a classroom, and then you're two-layers deep on cinder block walls.  The roof/ceiling become your weakest point, but since the halls are the narrowest "room" in the building, it is going to be better than any alternatives.



 

Also, our lockers had a little space between where they ended and the floor, so you could tuck your head in a little.

We had a tornado nearby in second grade.  I don't remember a ton from my grade school years, but I'll never forget how dark green and angry that sky was that morning.
 

Don't sweat it. Where I grew up in the Great Plains, a tornado warning was interpreted as "go outside and stare at the killstorm."

 

Yea...this is reality of living in the US (and many other places).  I would like to know more about your "are you so far removed" point?  What do you even mean?  This is a forced reality unfortunately, we have to find the fine line of how to introduce or prepare our kids for the possibility.

 

I think it makes sense to have a drill. You should be able to teach it to kids based on their comprehension levels. I would have a certain alarm sound for this drill. You teach the little kids that when we hear this alarm we go here and do this, just like you would for lining up for a fire drill or tornado drill. As the kids get older, you can explain the significance more. I think that little kids would follow directions in the case of an event if they hear that same alarm.

The challenge comes for teaching the kids if there is no alarm and the person just shows up in your classroom.

On a side note, I remember when my grade school had all entrances open throughout the day until there was some nut that took some kids hostage in gym class in the news back in 1993. My 3rd grade classroom was a mobile home, I know lol, and we had to go into the main school to go to the bathroom. We now needed a key to get into the school. We still went in by ourselves. PS, it was awesome to be in the mobile home because there were only two classes in K-8 in it and it had AC.

We do earthquake drills here. Maybe shooting too, but there wasnt many of those when I was in school.

I'm surprised no one's mentioned their own childhood "shooter" drills. Or was I just the unlucky one?

So this was the early to mid 90s in WA state in a...not huge town. We'd have drills where there would be an announcement that a man with a gun was on school grounds and we'd have to close the blinds, lock the doors, stay quiet and get under our desks and hide until the all clear was announced.

It wasn't like I was in the middle of the ghetto or anything. And this was pre Columbine. So as to why we had these...idk. Even glancing at the wiki article of school shootings (yes there is one and with death counts) there was nothing "huge" in the 90s until Columbine.

But my point is, these drills have been around since at least for me the 90s. I wouldn't really be so shocked they start them that early. Yes it's earlier then when I had to go through them but, given Sandy Hook...I think we need to start them young, the kids there were 6-7 years old so the younger we start them off with the idea that the world is bad and people will hurt you is better IMO.

I mean we all want to live in a happy go lucky sunshine world where we're all friends and unicorns prance around but it ain't happening. It's the truth of our world. I really do wish it was different.

It's not that crazy at all; they do (or at least when I went to school they did) earthquake and tornado drills...and guess what that consists of?

The difference is a tornado or earthquake isn't running into your classroom and targeting you with a gun.

There's Earthquakes and Tornadoes in the USA all the time.  There was never a nuclear bomb dropped here.  I'm not saying it's crazy to duck and cover, I'm saying it's crazy that the media drives such a fear into the population to prepare for incredibly low risk scenarios.  Though to be fair, if a bomb had been dropped, you'd assume that duck and cover would have saved some lives... temporarily at least, as the radiation would have gotten them long term. 

 

I took his comment as referring to nuclear duck-and-cover not being too crazy.

Though at least the style of duck-and-cover used for tornado and earthquake drills might actually have some positive impact in those situations.

Nuclear duck-and-cover might as well be "put your head between your knees and kiss your ass goodbye".