School shootings are real, and are legitimately frightening.
But I suggest that active shooter drills do more harm than good.
And I suggest that it's a mistake for parents to legitimize active shooter drills by giving their kids special silent-phone-text-me-safe-words instructions.
I agree that they are real and frightening and given that the preparation for this unlikely event can be a difference between life and death.
like the stories of companies at world trade center who took time to practice the extremely unlikely event of “airplane hit the building how do we get out” and then safely got out cause they knew what they needed to do, kids also need to be prepared as well. it is horrible thing kids have to go through in the US but pretending this is not happening I believe is not the way to approach it
No one said anything about pretending it's not happening.
The correct method of training humans to conduct themselves in an orderly fashion under dramatic circumstances does not involve frightening them.
Prepare for all sorts of emergency scenarios. Tornadoes, earthquakes, power outages, fires, police activity, bomb threats. Prepare for them appropriately. In some cases: assemble at a distance outside. In some cases: go to safe assigned locations. In some cases: shelter in place. Category X scenario: take action Y.
Don't tell kids that superbad monsters are coming to get you and it's your responsibility to hide and not die (but make sure to text mommy and daddy! phone on silent!!1!!1! safeword "cacao"!!) when these evil creatures with big magic weapons come to hunt you down and watch you twist and scream in pain and eat your liver and we're soo worried about you and just want you to be safe so please don't die gruesomely, we love you so sorry we can't protect you make sure to study hard and do your homework.
The foregoing is an only slightly editorialized version of the way some schools and some parents communicate ASD importance to their children. I've seen worse. It involved parents sobbing. I've seen better too, but not much better.
But I suggest that active shooter drills do more harm than good.
And I suggest that it's a mistake for parents to legitimize active shooter drills by giving their kids special silent-phone-text-me-safe-words instructions.