Anxious and Frightened; The American Childhood

Darla said:
So anyway... you think growing up with constant anxiety and a feeling of unsafeness will have no effect?
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I think the anxiety is spoon fed to them by the idiots in the public school system who don't think things through but rather go with knee jerk reactions to situations. You know... like you.
 
Dungheap said:
Well, the important thing is to desensitize children to a heavily armed environment so they don't become such Nervous Nellies about guns. Maybe firearm instruction in school would be best.
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What really needs to be done is a teacher armed with a gun loaded with blanks needs to step out onto the playground during recess and fire off a few rounds quickly while the kids aren't looking.

Only then can we desensitize them sufficiently to do any good.
 
ZappasGuitar said:
What really needs to be done is a teacher armed with a gun loaded with blanks needs to step out onto the playground during recess and fire off a few rounds quickly while the kids aren't looking.

Only then can we desensitize them sufficiently to do any good.
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Zappa I know it's sick to find this kind of black humor funny, but I cracked up.
 
They'll grow up to be good liberals......hiding......like the draft-dodging presidents they elect.
 
Darla said:
I wonder what the long term effects of this are going to be?

Lockdown: Teaching Students to Hide From Guns, and Hide Their Fears

By KAREN E. DEMPSEY
“Mommy, it’s so hard at school,” Liddy whispers, curled up beside me in her bed, in the dark. “We’re not even allowed to say the word ‘gun.’ But then they make us think about them.”

It is a few days after the school’s lockdown drill, and 7-year-old Liddy is up in the middle of the night asking if bullets can break through car windows. “I’m trying not to worry,” she said, “but it just keeps appearing.” Her toes clench and flex against my leg. Eventually, she falls back to sleep.

Why are we doing this? I wonder. The stakes could not be higher, I know. Newtown remains raw in our consciousness. Of course I want the teachers to prepare, as much as anyone can, for violence. But do we really have to take it this far?

“We can’t have drills to prepare for every bad thing that might happen in life,” my husband says.

Driving the kids to school the morning after Liddy’s late-night worrying, I suggest we talk to her first-grade teacher about it.

“No!” Liddy says, sounding panicked.

From the back seat, 9-year-old Brennan speaks up. “Me and my friends help each other feel better by telling jokes about it at recess,” he said. “Like, ‘What if a drunk guy came in and shot a urinal?’”

This is the most Brennan has said since the day of the drill, when his only comment was that his back hurt from “crunching into the hiding spot.” This revelation, that the kids are trying to find ways to reassure themselves on the playground, away from the adults, is telling. Before the drill, Brennan complained that teachers wouldn’t say the real reason for it – in case “some guys comes in shooting at us,” he said. “Instead, they just kept saying ‘someone who doesn’t belong here.’”

We want to believe we can “prepare” kids, but we recognize that it’s too horrible to actually talk about. And I’m feeling the stress of the silence. The lockdowns are new to our school district. We learned about them in a form letter that came home in our kids’ backpacks two months after Newtown. I don’t know who decided to do start holding them or whether our school has flexibility in how it implements them. I’ve e-mailed the principal and posted questions to the parent listserv, but no one seems to know or want to say very much.

At school, Liddy and I do talk to her teacher, who is wonderful. She assures Liddy that she can always come to her with questions. But really, what can she say? The fears are planted there when children are told to hide in the dark and become “silent and invisible” — a phrase from the sample script given to all of the district’s teachers during their lockdown-drill training.

The script attempts to provide teachers with answers to questions kids might ask. It offers statistics – the likelihood they’ll be killed in a shooting, 1 in 3,000,000 – and the startling suggestion, in dealing with older kids, that teachers tell them the most likely “mean angry person” to enter the school and cause a lockdown drill is another child’s parent.

At drop-off a few days later, Liddy asks, “Mommy, am I safe at school?” I hug her goodbye and she squeezes my hand. “My tummy feels like it’s bouncing.”

Meanwhile, another letter comes home in her backpack assuring parents that the first drill went well. There will be another in the spring, it says, and this one will be “unannounced.” Kids and parents won’t know about them in advance, and neither will the teachers. This is necessary so that they become routine, the letter explains.

The script given to the teachers says, “We will get used to doing them.”

Full story here
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My son (7) does not seem traumatized. He tells me about Code Red, he explains that it is just incase someone the teachers dont know is on campus. He says that they have to hide from people the teachers dont know. I asked why, he says that they might be trying to steal stuff. I ask if its scary and he says, "Its very unlikely to happen in real life."

A few weeks ago when they had a real "code red" he told me that it was just a drill and that there was not really a bad man at the school. My boy seems very philosophical about it and does not seem scared. Not like the night after we went to the zoo and saw tigers, that night he was scared. He wanted to know what happens if Tigers ecaped and if Bears lived in Florida.
 
Granule said:
Not quite. More guns in the hands of responsible citizens.
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Ummm, no. It was the son of a responsible gun owner who blew away those 26 kids and adults. It was a responsible gun owner who blew away dozens in a movie theatre. It was a responsible gun owner who shot down a congresswoman and five others.

If you honestly thought "guns in the hands of responsible citizens", then you'd be supporting current gun safety measures including background checks, closing loopholes, education, and mental health testing of applicants.

Instead, your stock answer, mimicking the NRA and gun companies who are getting richer and richer off these tragedies, is MORE GUNS!

Superfreak said:
LMAO... or they might just wish they would have had a gun there to protect them. They might just wonder why none of the adults in the school was able to fight back effectively. Some valiantly gave their lives to protect the kids as best they could... what would the outcome have been had one been armed and trained in fire arm use?
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Contrary to popular belief, the world is not full of wanna-be Rambos with the fortitude or psyche to think fast and gun down a guy carrying a gun.

Superfreak said:
yet is the left who is cowering and fear mongering...
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QUICK! BUY MORE GUNS BEFORE THE NIGGRAH PRESIDENT COMES AND TAKES THEM!


That's fear mongering...
 
Dungheap said:
We raise our kids in an environment of irrational fear as a general matter. It's really fucked up. This is just another log on the bonfire. As a parent it's really hard to do things differently because it's so damned pervasive.
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I work very hard to do things differently. I was raised in an enviroment of irrational fear. To hear my mother you would think the we grew up in the most dangerous neighborhood in America.... in reality it was a very sleepy little suburb about 15 miles north of Tampa.

I leave my house unlocked during the day, I let my kids play in the front yard. I dont hover over them. My son had 7 stitches in his head once, and 4 on his finger, I could have prevented it had I been hovering.... To me, a few stitches is a small price to pay for a childhood of freedom and with less fear. I let my son have a sip of beer, I let him run outside barefoot, I allow him to climb trees and spend the night at friends houses. I let him snorkle in the ocean. I allow him to jump on the neighbors trampolene. I even allow him to go to the restroom alone at restaurants.... All of these are things some friends have raised an eyebrow at, but I belive Im allowing better childhood and a better more trusting future where he knows the world can be dangerous but generally its not something he cant handle, but also the world is adventurous fun and free.
 
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Howey said:
Ummm, no. It was the son of a responsible gun owner who blew away those 26 kids and adults. It was a responsible gun owner who blew away dozens in a movie theatre. It was a responsible gun owner who shot down a congresswoman and five others.

If you honestly thought "guns in the hands of responsible citizens", then you'd be supporting current gun safety measures including background checks, closing loopholes, education, and mental health testing of applicants.

Instead, your stock answer, mimicking the NRA and gun companies who are getting richer and richer off these tragedies, is MORE GUNS!



Contrary to popular belief, the world is not full of wanna-be Rambos with the fortitude or psyche to think fast and gun down a guy carrying a gun.



QUICK! BUY MORE GUNS BEFORE THE NIGGRAH PRESIDENT COMES AND TAKES THEM!


That's fear mongering...
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Actually, that is quite racist of you. For someone who would prefer others treat him for who he is and not simply because he is gay/straight, you would think you would not be so quick to toss out your racist bullshit.

Also... no one is suggesting Rambo or anything like that. Being properly trained helps you avoid panic. As you know, panic is never going to help a situation.

In addition, I would suggest you read the details of that day again. Many of the teachers/staff kept their heads and did what they could to protect those kids. Imagine if those adults had training and something to fight back with. But you can't imagine that with all of your fear mongering... can you?
 
I have several friends who are scared to death for there kids, they happen to be VERY CONSERVATIVE FOX NEWS WATCHING GUN HORDING REPUBLICANS, who are afraid to allow there kids to do just about anything. They go to private school because the public ones are not safe, they are not allowed to sleep over at friends houses because sex abuse is so rampant, they cant play in the front yard because of the HIGH risk of being kidnapped, they wont let them swim at the beach because of sharks.... These are not made up examples, they also have a closet full of guns and one under the bed because they are sure drug crazed liberals will break into the house to steal the 72 inch television.

I suggested getting rid of the fancy television and you would have thought I suggested selling the kids into white slavery!

I have very little worth stealing at my house 1) Because I dont need it, 2) I dont want to spend time or energy protecting it, 3) I would not want my family at risk of anyone who wanted to steal it.
 
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