Tuesday, June 19, 2007

Lockdown!!

Today, when the girls got home from school, I was quietly folding laundry in the family room, Kt ran upstairs to ??, and Em started playing "school", not intending to include me at all. Out of nowhere, she makes a beeping sound and announces, "Lockdown, lockdown!" She then proceeds to "tell her children" to hide.

I couldn't resist, I had to find out, is this something they actually do in school? She peered out from behind the armchair and said, "Yes, well, we do have lockdown drill in school. It's really fun. We get to hide!" I asked her what she was hiding from and where. She replied, "Well, we have to hide from the bombs, and we all just have to go in the middle and be really quiet, so that the bombs can't find us!"

My kids have been in school all year and I have never once heard either of them talk about Lockdown until today - is that even possible? Kt said it's fun, they get to hide in the coat closet or under the teacher's desk! What kind of world do we live in that our 6 and 9 year olds have to practice being attacked? It's not like we live in a war zone.... or do we?

4 comments:

Kathryn said...

OMG...wow. Hey, shouldn't the school tell parents about these drills? That's pretty heavy duty stuff that kids might need to talk about.

deanna said...

I was thinking the same thing! I've been at school before for one of these drills, but the kids were completely oblivious. There was no hiding! It sounds like it's gotten a little more unnerving!

Anonymous said...

Sometimes children get carried away and take it another step further. Today we had a "lost" child at our school. She wasn't really lost, but her mother, who brought her to the award ceremony thought she had lost her. After a frantic search by teachers and staff ( the principal was running the award ceremony and was not informed ) it turned out that the child had gone to sit with her fifth grade sisterand was two rows away from where the principal coud have seen her. However another child in second grade was overheard saying that a kindergartner was abducted and a bomb was put into her mouth and the man threatened to bomb the school. Where that came from, we'll never know!

deanna said...

LOL - they have some wild imaginations!! Another child from our school told her mother that they were hiding from the gunman. We have no idea if they are hearing these things from other kids (likely) or the teachers (highly unlikely!). Their imaginations are fed, of course, by watching too much TV, which insists on perpetuating school violence by their constant, repetitive reporting on incidents, further glorifying them in the demented minds of those who aspire to duplicate them. Time to turn off the news!