How to teach your kids to react to mass shootings?

[crusader377]

This shooting in CT really hit a nerve with me because I have a daughter in kindergarten. This is a question particularly for LEOs or individuals on the board that do various sort of protection work or security consulting. What is the best way to teach younger children how to react to a mass shooting type situation without making them paranoid or overally scared?

If you are in LEO or do security work please qualify it in your responses.

Thank you!

[Doc Safari]

I worked in law enforcement for eight years, not that revealing that is particularly relevant to my response to your thread.

I would say tread very lightly. You don't want to ruin part of your kids' childhood by making them afraid of something that may never happen.

I would simply train them to be able to either hide or run from any "generic" threat without bringing school shootings into it.

The same way you teach your kids not to talk to strangers, teach them to be "situationally aware" of something wrong and to trust their instincts to leave an area if someone scares them in some way.

Then augment that with teaching them to always look for the exits and/or a hiding place when they enter a room "just in case."

I have never had kids, so that is my "expert" opinion. :rolleyes:

[AKDoug]

It's a tough subject. All my kids have outgrown the "run and hide" stage. Even "professionals" can't agree on an appropriate response to an "active" shooter incident. I try and teach my kids to think on their feet and to not freeze in the face of fear. The problem is, how can you actually test their reaction to fear. Every soldier, firefighter, cop etc. receives a well developed and evolved program of training that weeds out the weak. Even after that, some of those folks still freeze in the heat of danger.

I have two teenage daughters and a teenage son. All are firearms savvy and understand how guns work. They know that hitting a running target is very tough, even for a seasoned shooter. They've all been taught to run like hell if the opportunity presents itself. They've been taught to look for weapons if cornered and there is no other choice. They've been taught that throwing a desk through a window is perfectly o.k. if they feel the need to do it. They've been taught that when cornered, to fight like hell. I teach them that kneeling in the corner provides an easier target than a target that fights back.

I could be completely wrong, but that's the way we've chosen to talk about this sort of thing in our family. This is a case where kids that understood guns took action and stopped a school shooter
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kip_Kinkel

[Moose-Knuckle]

Move to Israel where the schools are guarded by armed grandparents who are former IDF. ;)

[usmcvet]

Move to Israel where the schools are guarded by armed grandparents who are former IDF. ;)

That is what we need to do to stop these ****ing cowards. Give them a lead Asprin when they show more guns not less is the answer. At age five this is more about controlling our fear as parents. We need to stay calm and remind the kids of the drills they learn in school. Fire drills and secure the building are the drills my kids learn.

[usmcvet]

Teaching them to run and fight is a good option too. Home Schooling is the only real answer.

[AKDoug]

We homeschooled our kids up until middle school. Regardless of whether or not they go to school, they will eventually be in a crowd and subject to the same dangers as anybody else. Of the hundred reasons I homeschooled my kids, security and religion were not two of them.

[CarlosDJackal]

A friend of mine asked me this very question. Here is what I replied with:

Unfortunately, this is very much situational-dependent and is not necessarily one that has a A+B=C type of an answer. There are going to be instances where hiding is the best action versus trying to egress. If the teacher has locked the classroom to prevent entry, but has not bothered to turn off the lights to make it seem like it is empty, then you are in trouble. There are instances where escaping out of the building puts them in the kill zone (IE: March 24, 1998 @ Westside Middle School, Arkansas).

Each school is supposed to have an Active Shooter Policy in place. This includes ways that they can communicate to responding Officers that their classroom is locked down and safe or is not occupied at all. The layout of the school can either help or detract its students' safety.

But boiled down to its most basic element - anyone who can keep their distance and/or stay out of the Active Shooters' observation stands the best chance of surviving. Outside of those two options, the only other viable course-of-action is to overpower the attacker.

This video does a decent job of specifying those choices (RUN - HIDE - FIGHT): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5VcSwejU2D0

I wish the schools and the area Law Enforcement Agencies would organize and conduct Active Shooter training at the various schools so that the schools' administrators and teachers can have some sort of an idea on what they can do to minimize the casualties. But barring that, tell your kids to take the time to study their school's layout. Specifically, to identify viable hiding places, avenues of escape, and more importantly "Kill Zones" that Active Shooters might want to exploit.

[Moose-Knuckle]

I'm sure there are some airline pilots and principals out there that wished they had one of these on their walls . . .

http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a144/AKS-74/incasebreakglassak.jpg

[tb-av]

Teaching them to run and fight is a good option too. Home Schooling is the only real answer.

Virginia Tech .... can't home school forever.

[Belmont31R]

I want my kids to be kids. They are twins, 6, and in kindergarten. I want them to innocent kids not learning how to respond to a mass shooting.


I completely understand the feeling parents get, and the last time my eyes watered up multiple times in a day was when my mom died until today. But I think we need to take a step back at times, and out of the millions of kids who go to school everyday this still really is a small threat. Your kid is more likely to be killed in a car accident on the way to school than in a shooting like this.


Don't let the small minority control your life...

[SteyrAUG]

Doc Glockster, CarlosDJackal & Belmont31R pretty much covered it.

Not much to add.