As the mother of school-age children, I let out a huge sigh of relief last week on the last day of school. It wasn’t just because school is out and I’m looking forward to relaxing with my kids, though that is certainly a factor. It wasn’t just because I’m finally done signing “Friday folders” and monitoring online grade reports and waiting in the carpool line, though those are things I am glad to have a break from. If I am being honest, the primary reason for my end-of-school relief is that for a few months, I don’t have to worry about my kids being involved in a school shooting.
This is the reality of parenting a school-age child in America. And in Uvalde’s home state of Texas, where 19 children and 2 educators were massacred a year ago, one school district is employing a unique tool to help deal with this crisis: a Winnie-the-Pooh children’s book about how to survive a school shooting.
Yes, you read that right. No, I am not kidding.
The book, which features the beloved bear and friends, is called “Stay Safe” and was sent home in the backpacks of elementary children in the Dallas Independent School District last week. The book tells the kids how to “Hide, run, and fight” per the FBI’s recommendations of what to do in an active shooter situation.
I could NOT believe it when I read this story. Yes, this is something we need to talk to our kids about. It is a very tragic and unfortunate reality. But I feel like instead of scarring kids for life by having their favorite character drop some survival advice on them, Texas lawmakers could you know, pass some common sense gun laws that would make this kind of educational tool unnecessary. Like honestly? We’re just going to accept that school shootings are a fact of life and let Winnie the Pooh break it down for our kids instead of trying to actually protect them and stop school shootings??
It boggles the mind.
Things are no better in my home state. I worry for my kids, whose school is very serious about safety but also has a ton of glass hallways. We all know, thanks to the Covenant school shooting in Nashville, how glass stacks up against an AR-15.
My now 16-year-old was very, very upset last year when small children were massacred at Robb Elementary in Uvalde. She worried endlessly for her younger brother. But when the Covenant Christian School shooting happened in Nashville in March, my girl really lost it. You see, my kids go to a Christian school also. This one hit super close to home for her, and again, if I’m being honest, it pretty much ruined the last half of her second semester of sophomore year.
She’s worried, yes, but she’s also angry. She sees that American adults, voters, politicians, etc. have done absolutely nothing to stop these mass shootings in schools and other places. And I don’t know what to tell her. Because she’s not wrong.
Maybe someone needs to write a Winnie the Pooh book for adults about how to come to the table together and compromise on some common sense gun laws. I have no problem with responsible people owning a pistol or a hunting rifle, but we need background checks, red flag laws, and extremely limited access to automatic weapons to stop mass shootings at schools, grocery stores, outlet malls, entertainment districts, movie theaters, workplaces, and concerts. No other country in the WORLD has this mass shooting problem. It is an American problem, and we need to take a page from our international neighbors’ books—not a Winnie the Pooh book—to solve it.
