Going away to college or just moving into the dorm at the college nearby was once an exciting prospect. Away from home and the parents. Out on your own and taking charge of your time. As parents, we spend the first 18 years of our children’s lives preparing them with the right jewels of wisdom. We hope and pray that by the time they leave, they are ready for all the good, and the bad that they will encounter.

We hope we’ve given them a firm foundation in their faith. We teach them that it will be only a matter of time when drugs will be offered to them and how to say no. We talk to them about sex and the virtues of not sleeping around. But there is a new issue on the block. One that our parents didn’t need to talk to us about – the lone shooter.

In the late 1940’s at the height of the atomic and nuclear bomb scare, students and citizens learned the term, “duck and cover.” There were drills in neighborhoods, offices and public places. Those of us who grew up in the late 60’s and early 70’s hardly remember these drills. And young parents today know them only as a section in their history books. Today, our “duck and cover” lessons need to be about what to do if a lone shooter comes into your classroom, dorm, mall, church, theater or any large public gathering.

Reportedly In the first 10 months of this year, there have been 10 university shooting sprees. That’s one a month. We don’t want to send our kids off to school in fear, but we need to add the terrorists to the list of “what to do if” conversations we have with them.

Thankfully, I still have some time for working this lesson into our conversation. I’m already praying for the wise words to use. We want to send our kids out into that big world with confidence and boldness. We want to launch them saying, “look out world, here I come,” just as we left home. To do so they need to be armed with the weapons of wisdom, discernment, faith, hope, positive disciplines in their lives and “what to do if.”

What do you think?

KK