Last night I watched my kiddo grow up a little bit more. Seeing that is rare, at least for me. Growth is normally a gradual process, and you notice it after the fact.
Sitting at the kitchen table, I was working, he was doing homework, and we were talking about our days. He was working on an essay about a trip we took, he wanted a school t-shirt, and he was caught up after missing a few days of school to travel for a sports competition.
"Oh, and in social studies we talked about school shootings, and what to do if one happened in school" he said. He mentioned it so casually; deliberately not lifting his head from the drawing he was working on. Hearing this my heart sank a little bit. He's 13 now. I know he is aware that school shootings happen, but that doesn't change my urge to shield him from the fear and hurt that lurk out there in the world. Since I can't shield him from reality and prepare him for it at the same time we need to talk these things through. Like so many other frightening realities that could happen, it's better to have a plan. We have them for fires, floods, bomb threats, and abductions. We live close enough to Three Mile Island that we have a plan for any sort of meltdown or leak there. None of these things have ever happened to me, or to him, but they're a possibility, so we make plans, and we hope we never need them. Following his lead, I didn't turn my eyes away from my computer, and I asked what they talked about, and what the plan was.
The plan is to get out of the school, if at all possible.
The plan is that they may have to fight someone with a gun, if someone with a gun is in their classroom, because you want to get the gun away from that person.
The deal is, that not everyone is a fighter, and that's ok. His teacher said so.
I know that this came up because the kids asked about it. When you talk about these scenarios, and you tell kids that they need to get out of the school, they want to know about the worst case. What if you can't get out of the school? What if the shooter is in the room? What if you have to fight?
What if you have to fight, and you can't?
My kiddo is a good person. He wants everyone around him to be happy and safe. Some of that is how we raised him, and some of that is the person he is. Last night I watched him try to determine if he would be brave enough to try to keep people safe by fighting someone with a gun. He was chewing on a rice krispie treat, trying to figure out what kind of hero he thinks he is strong enough to be.
He was finishing his homework, and weighing his fear against the safety of others.
He was growing up a little bit, right there in front of me.
