Hi fellow caregiver to a student in a US school,
Raising kids in a country with school shootings can be traumatizing. This post won’t remove the trauma, but it will help you navigate uncomfortable discussions with your child so you stop retreating to the sidelines while they experience something scary.
The reality is, kids today face lockdown drills in some form or another. The only thing we, as parents, get to decide is whether or not our kids will have our support in their experience.
Ground-breaking research published by The American Academy of Pediatrics, reveals that safe, secure, nurturing relationships can not only prevent toxic stress in our children, but also build resilience.
Reading this post will help you be that safe, secure, nurturing relationship for your child while they experience something potentially toxic!
I recommend you read this post in its entirety, giving yourself breaks when you need. Then take time to process what you have learned and to consider your child’s unique needs as you decide how to proceed. Also, I’m including a ton of resources at the end in case you feel like you need to study anything further.
This topic can be heavy. I’ve done my best to only include vital information in the least emotional way possible. Of course, reach out if you have any questions. I love hearing from other parents who are also navigating these uncharted waters.
Here are ten steps to prepare you for lockdown drill conversations. Are you ready?!
Step One: Identify your goals.
Without concrete goals you will rely on your gut to tell you how the conversation went. You’ll be talking to a child about lockdown drills and potential school shootings. Even if the conversation goes really well you will face big and potentially upsetting emotions. Though the conversation may leave you rattled, you are still laying a vital foundation of support for your child.
What should your goals be?
Goal 1: Open the door for conversation on this topic so your child knows they can turn to you in the future when they need.
Goal 2: Establish yourself in your child’s mind as both knowledgeable and able to handle this topic.
Goal 3: Teach your kid that their physical safety is the most important thing.
Notice that your goal is not to teach your child the steps of a lockdown. That will likely happen naturally but, because these conversations are complex, it is important to keep a bigger picture in mind.
More than teaching safety, you are laying a foundation of support.
Step Two: Review how experts recommend we handle hard topics with our young kids.
So much has been written about how to talk to kids about hard topics and experts generally agree on many things including:
Have the conversation. The American Psychological Association explains that when adults don’t talk to kids about a stressful event, children may overestimate what is wrong or misunderstand adults’ silence.
Think about what you want to say beforehand (by reading this guide you are doing just that!).
Be truthful but don’t give unnecessary graphic detail. Being honest is important for maintaining your child’s trust.
Leave time to listen. Your child’s comments may take things in a different direction than you were planning and that’s ok. Help them feel seen.
Leave the door open and reassure your child of their safety and your connection.
Step Three: Consider that, rather than one “big talk,” your conversations should be casual small conversations that are built upon consistently over time.
Did your parents have one, big sex education talk with you? Did it leave you feeling totally comfortable to come back with follow up questions? Or did you die of embarrassment and plot your exit strategy the whole time?
If we want our kids to feel comfortable talking to us about something, we can’t plan a rigid conversation and give it a grand build up. We will sacrifice goals one and two if we do!
Rather, we need to consider that talking to them about their physical safety, including lockdown protocol, is something that will be ongoing. As your child matures, your conversations should grow and shift to meet their needs.
Take some pressure off your first conversation about lockdown drills. It should open the door but it doesn’t need to cover every aspect of the topic. Plan to circle back.
Messages about your child’s safety are important and need regular reinforcement.
Step Four: Decide if your child is actually ready to talk about lockdowns.
Your child may not be ready, or this guide may not adequately address your family’s unique needs, if your child:
Is already panicked about going to school,
Has not yet attended school,
Has a disability that makes either lockdown drills or hard conversations extra challenging,
Has experienced trauma that may be reexperienced when discussing drills, or
Other factors that concern you.
Your child may be ready to talk about lockdowns if they:
Have attended school previously,
Generally feel comfortable and safe going to school, and
Are experiencing, or will soon experience, lockdown drills.
Step Five (optional, but recommended): Find out when your child will be experiencing a lockdown drill.
Experts strongly recommend (see sources below) that all drills for schools be announced beforehand to all staff, students, and families. The time of the drill can be kept a surprise but the day of the drill should be disclosed in advance.
If your school doesn’t automatically inform you of their plans for a drill, reach out and ask. While you’re at it, see if they’ll start announcing it beforehand.
Step Six: Educate yourself on the recommendations from industry experts on lockdown protocol for adults (no stress, just keep reading this guide and you’ll be up to speed in a few minutes!).
The instruction that should be given to children is “listen, run, hide.” But you as the parent need to know where that instruction stems from.
Many parents hesitate to talk to their kids about lockdown drills because they are unsure what the recommended practices even are. They worry they’ll teach the wrong thing. Building confidence in your own knowledge will empower you to tackle this conversation like a champ!
Here is a crash-course that will have you brimming with confidence. We’ll break down instructions for kids in the next step.
The national standard for responding to an active shooter consists of three actions. They are, in this order: Run, Hide, Fight. (The video linked here is intense! If you are looking for the least emotional impact, I recommend you skip the video and keep reading this guide.)
Action One: Run
In case of an active shooter, experts recommend you run away from the shooter to a safer place, preferably away from the scene. Katherine Schweit, creator of the FBI’s active shooter department, often says, “you can’t get shot if you aren’t there.”
This action is the most simple and straightforward.
Action Two: Hide
Perhaps the most misunderstood recommendation is that once you have run to the safest place possible, if you were unable to leave the scene, you should hide. However, in this context, the term “hide” is so much more than hoping that the shooter is unaware of your presence. It involves placing as many barriers as you can between you and the shooter.
In place of the term “hide,” one national leader in active shooter response prefers the term “deny,” as in, “deny the shooter access to you.” Other organizations prefer the term “lock,” as in, “lock a door.”
So, in active shooter response, “hide” actually consists of barricading yourself in a room, locking doors, moving furniture, etc.
Traditional lockdowns carried out in most schools throughout the US are a part of this action. Our schools resort to “hiding” because, for most buildings, having the whole school try to “run” would problematically funnel all kids into one hallway.
Action Three: Fight (sit tight, it gets dark but i'll be brief! You’ve got this!)
Am I the only one who, with bewilderment, pictures trying to throw a punch at an armed shooter when you hear this recommendation? That is not exactly what this recommendation means.
Rather, it means you arm yourself with anything that can be used as a weapon. Fire extinguisher, stapler, computer monitor, chair, etc. Anything that could land a heavy blow will do.
Work with any other individuals available to carry out an attack at the same time, using the strength of numbers, and the element of surprise, to your advantage.
Above all, only fight when you are unable to run or hide. This is a last case resort.
Phew, we made it. You alright? I know it is awful to think through those details and it can bring up many emotions. I agree that it is infuriating that we haven’t done more to stop these tragedies from happening.
Step Seven: Now that you know how to respond to an emergency, learn how to teach those responses in age-appropriate ways to children. (I’ve got you here too!)
Organizations all across the US use a variety of curricula (clever terms, acronyms, etc) to teach lockdown protocol to kids. Rather than reviewing them all here, we’ll discuss my preferred method which also consists of three actions: Listen, Run, Hide.
This curriculum builds on the standard adult protocol we explored above with a few adjustments to make it age appropriate. Namely, the instruction of “fight” is dropped and the instruction to “listen to adults” is added as the first recommended action.
Building on the curriculum that is taught to adults ensures that kids are receiving a cohesive message throughout their life. It is easy to build on this framework.
Action One: Listen
The single most important thing your child can do during a lockdown (or any emergency) is listen to their teachers and other staff. These professionals are trained in the school’s emergency protocol, can assess danger better than your minor child, and need students to follow directions quickly.
It is possible that all your child needs to do during a lockdown is listen to and follow directions from their teacher. The teacher will likely instruct your child to get out of sight and remain quiet while they lock the door and turn off the light.
This can feel insufficient to many caregivers. (“That’s it? Isn’t there more that can be done?”) But historically locked doors have been a very effective barrier during emergencies! (See note below to learn more.)
What if your kid is not with a teacher when the lockdown starts?
Action Two: Run
Without an adult around to give directions, your child should run to the safest possible place even in areas where running is not usually allowed. This could be the nearest classroom, even if it isn’t theirs. It’s ok to break rules if it keeps your kid safe!
Running could also mean leaving the school altogether. This idea makes many caregivers and school administrators nervous. I get it! However, if there is a known armed threat in the school, the chances of your child’s safety in the neighborhood or businesses that surround the school are greater than remaining inside with the known threat.
Tell your child to run until they find a police officer, a friendly store owner, or neighbor. Remember that in a lockdown, law enforcement will be flocking to your school in droves so it won’t be hard for someone to let the authorities know they’ve found your child.
Action Three: Hide
Once your child has run to the safest place, they should hide. Emphasize here that no area is off limits. When we are out running errands, my kids and I like to identify places that are normally off limits but are totally ok to use if we feel unsafe: teachers lounge, emergency exits, grocery store offices, the opposite sex bathroom, etc.
Remember and teach that your child’s safety is more important than following rules.
Bonus discussion: teaching “fight” to kids
Teaching “fight” is a hot button topic for active shooter response professionals and I could write eight more pages about it. But let’s not. ;) Here is what you need to know.
Many professionals in the field of active shooter response feel (quite passionately) that “hide” should not be the final action we teach kids. They believe, based on their first hand experiences in what they do, that “hiding” is too passive and there needs to be one more step/action.
Many pediatric and mental health providers have expressed strong concerns about teaching kids to “fight” an intruder including; that the kids may try to fight when they should run, that a child may experience excessive guilt if they survive an event and didn’t successfully fight the gunman, and more.
Personally I don’t really teach my kids to “fight” someone as a means to find safety. But I do teach them general stranger danger, including that it is ok to hurt someone who is trying to harm or take them.
My child has asked what if the “bad person” got into the place where my child is hiding. I reminded them that nothing is more important than their safety so they are free to do whatever they think will keep them safe. Running out of the room would probably be a good option. They could also break and climb out of a window, throw items, hurt the person, and generally do things they normally aren’t allowed to do.
Then I ended with, “but I really don’t think a bad person will ever be near you. We like to talk about this just in case, but I want you to know I don’t think it will ever happen.”
Step Eight: Think through these common conversational stumbling blocks.
You’re almost ready to go and I hope you are feeling more prepared for these conversations than you were previously! Let’s take a quick minute to highlight common places caregivers stumble when having these conversations.
Comfort your child. It is common for our adult brain to get so stuck on the unknowns, that we forget, or feel like we can’t honestly, comfort our kids. But we should!
What if I told you that, when writing my book, the creator of the FBI’s active shooter program was the one who added much of the comforting dialogue that comes from Willa’s parents? Schweit spent much of her career responding to scenes of active shootings. Because of the rarity of these events (which were not rare to her) she has still regularly shared messages of relative safety.
Ideas of what to say:
“I won’t ever send you somewhere that I think is unsafe.”
“Schools are very safe.” (Schweit added these words to my book, Listen, Run, Hide!)
“Your teacher is very smart and good at keeping your class safe.”
“We do lots of different kinds of drills for a variety of emergencies. We practice even though we don’t think the emergency will ever happen.”
Consider other words to use besides “shooter.” Adults refer to the person by the weapon they carry, but that can be a scary image for your young child! And they don’t need to know this aspect of the threat in order for you to achieve your goals.
(Remember your goals? 1. Start the conversation. 2. Establish yourself in your child’s mind as a resource. 3. Teach them their physical safety is important.)
Other options to the term “shooter” may be:
someone who shouldn’t be at school,
someone who is trying to hurt someone else, or
a bad person.
You can always say, “I don’t know, but I’ll find out.” This may come in handy if your child starts asking specifics about protocol at their school.
It’s ok if you don’t know all the answers. The important thing is that your child knows they can talk to you about lockdowns and that you can handle it.
Step Nine: Have the initial conversation.
The easiest way to first talk to your kid about lockdowns is to read together the picture book that I wrote called Listen, Run, Hide. You can get it on the same website where you downloaded this kit.
This picture book is perfect for creating a cozy and natural environment. Just snuggle on the couch and read about a family like yours having a conversation like yours!
Plus when writing it I had help from industry leaders in the field of active shooter response and feedback from licensed pediatrics mental health specialists. This is the tool I desperately wanted as a mom and I’m proud of how it turned out!
If you are not buying the book, here are some other ideas for conversation starters:
Ask what your child learned during their recent lockdown drill.
Ask them how they felt about various parts of the drill.
Ask them “If there was a new student in your class that had never done a drill before, how would you explain it to them so they would know what to expect?”
Step Ten: Casually build going forward!
Look for opportunities to reinforce these two messages:
Your child’s physical safety is the most important thing.
Listening to trusted adults keeps them safe.
Once you’ve had that first conversation, it is easy to build on your safety conversation naturally. Here are some simple examples of how you can weave lockdown instruction (which is really just general safety) into your regular conversations with your young kids:
Your child tells you about another student's poor behavior and how frustrating it was for the teacher. “That is disappointing and I can understand why your teacher was frustrated. Thank you for always trying your best to follow your teacher’s instructions. Listening to your teacher shows respect, helps you learn, and also keeps you safe at school.”
Walking through parking lots and crossing streets are opportunities for your child to practice following directions. I pause to regroup when needed and say things like, “following my directions in the parking lot will keep you safe. We need to go back to the car until I know you can do as I ask while we walk into the store.”
Family walks and bike rides are another great opportunity for your child to practice following directions in potentially dangerous situations.
Rather than explaining that “we don’t go through emergency exits,” rephrase your comments to something like: “that is a great place for us to go if ever we feel unsafe. Otherwise, we shouldn’t use those doors.”
Closing
While this conversation will never be comfortable, you can take comfort in knowing that you can be a powerful support person to your kid as they grow up in a country with gun violence.
Your kid needs you and you are working through your own anxiety to be there for them. That’s super cool!
Our community improves with every adult who makes an effort to show up for their kid to the best of their ability. Thanks for the resilient kid you are raising!
Further Studying: Looking for some rabbit holes? You’ve come to the right place!
Talking to children about tough topics
National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children https://www.nspcc.org.uk/keeping-children-safe/support-for-parents/talking-about-difficult-topics/
The American Psychological Association
American Montessori Society
Locked Doors
If you want to learn more about locked doors having positive impacts in emergencies, I recommend the podcast called Stop the Killing by Katherine Schweit. Throughout her many episodes on specific shootings, she points out the undeniable pattern of locked doors keeping people safe. I also recommend her books.
General lockdown protocol and curriculum
FBI (The national standard): https://www.fbi.gov/how-we-can-help-you/active-shooter-safety-resources
ALERRT (at Texas State University)
ALICE by Navigate 360 (a training organization)
I Love You Guys (a training organization)
Taking a trauma-informed approach (build a case for announcing lockdown drills beforehand!)
ALICE by Navigate 360 (a training organization)
National Association of School Psychologists (see number 7 under “steps for conducting safe, effective, and appropriate drills”)
The National Child Traumatic Stress Network
I love how comprehensive this is! I struggle to know how much to say or not say to my kid and I feel like this helps me think through how to better guide the conversations.
Thank you for putting this together!