Lockdowns are a scary subject for both kids and adults.  Now that lockdown drills and actual lockdowns due to real threats of danger are becoming more common, more kids and teens seem to be expressing that the possibility of lockdowns is one of their major school concerns.

And unfortunately (and of course, fortunately), they are not something that today’s parents have much firsthand experience with.  This can make it difficult to know how to talk to kids and teens about them.  You might not even want to talk about it -- you might have an impulse to pretend it doesn’t happen or to push off conversations about it, to try to protect your child from the fear of the experience and the reality of school violence in our present society.  At the same time, you likely know that this is unavoidable, especially if you live in a community that has started implementing regular lockdown drills.  

The “good” (for lack of a better word) news is that kids already know about lockdowns.  By talking with them about it, you likely won’t be making it any more real to them, but you might help them to feel less scared or at least feel like they can talk to you about their concerns, and that it is okay to feel scared sometimes.  

It can be hard to know what to say to children in difficult situations, including ones like school lockdown drills.  And of course what you say and how you say it will depend on the child’s age, current emotional state, and how much they need to know in the moment.  A general rule of thumb when talking to kids about difficult subjects is to always be honest, but not give more information than they can handle.  In other words, you don’t want to tell a child a lie, but you don’t want to give them so much information that they become overwhelmed.  What you tell your child will depend on their age, maturity level, and other experiences they have had in their life.   For more guidelines on what to tell children of different age groups, please see this article.  It has tips for how to talk to children and is broken down by age group so that you can find what to say to a child who is your age.  It’s a great article and worth the read!

For children and teens of any age, it can be helpful to acknowledge how scary the situation is while also drawing attention to the adults who are trying to keep them safe.  Lockdown drills are a way to practice doing behaviors that help us to feel safe, and there are safe adults who are in charge of implementing them.  In many conversations, whether those involve adults, children, or both, there is a focus on the danger and the chaos.  The danger and chaos is real and cannot be dismissed.  But the people who are there to help are just as real and important, and bringing your child’s attention to these people can help them to feel a bit more in control.  And often, the people who are trying to help vastly outnumber those who are trying to do the opposite.

Like so many other parts of life, there is nothing you or I can do to completely protect your child from the fear related to lockdowns.  But being able to really be there with your child by being open to their questions and explaining things honestly and appropriately can go a long way toward helping them to feel less alone and limit the level of fear they are experiencing.