Like every parent, I want my kids to be safe. I know that for my young daughter and son to grow and thrive, they need to feel secure in their surroundings. But with the way people coddle their children these days, I fear we’re raising a generation that won’t be able to handle life’s basic challenges. So when my kids face tough situations, like getting shot at, I try not to shelter them too much. I realize if I take a bullet for them, they may never learn to take bullets themselves.
When my second-grader’s shoe comes untied, or my kindergartner’s coat needs zipping, I don’t immediately kneel down and do it for them. They’re old enough to manage these things on their own, and though they may get frustrated at times, it’s a necessary lesson in personal responsibility. Same deal when shots are fired. I could throw myself in front of them the moment someone starts shooting in their direction, but then I’m not exactly preparing them for life, am I?
Obviously, I wouldn’t be doing my kids any favors if I sent them out into the world not knowing how to sustain a gunshot wound to the chest.
Sometimes it’s your job as a parent to stand back and say, “You got this, buddy!” Whether your child is learning to ride a bike, heading off to camp for the first time, or bleeding out because multiple shots have perforated their torso, it can be hard to watch them struggle. After all, there may be a few tears! But before you know it, they’re figuring out how to balance on two wheels, make new friends, or tear their shirt into strips to stanch the flow of blood until paramedics arrive.
Unfortunately, today’s helicopter parents have other ideas, hovering overhead and swooping in the moment their child faces adversity. You know the type— they intervene any time their kid has an argument with a friend, gets a bad grade, or doesn’t make a sports team. Well, they do the same thing in an active-shooter situation. Believe it or not, some parents will literally throw themselves on top of an armed assailant to ensure their child doesn’t take a single stray bullet.
I can understand their impulse, but kids need to develop self-
reliance. Sometimes that means being stern and making them find their own cover when a shooter opens fire in a public space.
Back when I was growing up, parents still believed in a crazy little thing called tough love. I might scream and holler and cry for help, but that didn’t mean my mom and dad charged to the rescue every time I procrastinated on a science project or forgot to bring my coat to school. It can be a challenge, taking shots from a powerful rifle, but it’s also an experience that builds character in young people, assuming they are able to recover from the blood loss.
Surely nothing is more impor-tant for children to learn than how to get back up after life knocks them down in a hail of gunfire.
Someday my kids will be adults. They’ll go off to college and get shot, they’ll join the workforce and get shot. I won’t be there to hold their hand through the many rounds of ammunition the world fires their way. If I crouch with them under a table every time a deranged gunman storms into Baskin-Robbins, I will have failed as a father. They’ll grow up expecting someone to step in and actually do something to stop them from being torn to pieces by an AR-15.
And we all know that’s never going to happen.
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