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What steps can you take to make sure your childs school is safe after a crisis?

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What steps can you take to make sure your childs school is safe after a crisis?

When some kind of crisis occurs at school, that is extra scary for kids. That's one place where we all assume as parents, and kids assume, you go and you're safe. Should some kind of crisis occur at a school and your child is worried about that, first of all go on ahead, call the school, look at your parent hand book, go online to your school's website. Find out what exactly the policies are that are in place at school to keep kids safe. Review those with your child. Then if you have a little one, in particular, certainly say, "You know what? If it makes your feel better, I'll walk you into the building tomorrow morning. We'll talk to your teacher. I'll be there for you." And let them talk about what their concerns are. Those things can be very reassuring.

It's also important as they get older to point out that although school crises, school shootings, are deeply distressful and sad for everyone, when that's happening at a school, there are literally hundreds of thousands of schools in operation all around the country where that isn't happening. So we want to help kids focus too on what is in place for their safety and the fact that this isn't an every day, every school type of occurrence.