Welcome everyone….

A family is without question the most rewarding and challenging role you will ever have as a parent.  We marvel at the creation of bringing a child into this world.  Early on, especially  if we are a first time parent, we react with many competing emotions and even self-doubts.  Will I be a good parent?  Will my child be healthy and happy?  When will I know if I really know what I should know? For sure, these and similar reactions are quite typical. 

 

In each stage of our child’s development, we will experience new joys, challenges, and things which catch and demand our attention.  Upon our child entering elementary school, each of us have figured out a lot of important things about good parenting but it doesn’t lessen concern for their safety and well-being.  The correlation to the  concern for their welfare is very much tied to relinquishing parental oversight once each of our kiddos reach school age.  We turn the responsibility, at least for a portion of the day, to the school bus driver, the road crossing volunteer, and our child’s teacher.  These are all predicable and necessary elements for each child gaining exposure to greater independence and self-suffiency in the world without 24/7 parental oversight.  As parents, we adapt to these changes with the belief that our kids will thrive and learn in a protected environment.

 

In reality, these notions are all valid but now compete with an ever growing awareness (and worry) about school safety matters.  Bullying, physical altercations on the play ground, cyberbullying, and most profoundly, school gun violence have left many parents reeling in perpetual worry over security and school safety which would have been unthinkable a generation ago.

 

My aim is to offer you tips and guidance on communicating with your child about school violence….and social violence more broadly. These snippets will hopefully be empowering and transferrable in taking on this parenting challenge.  It will lend itself for the opportunity to address the notion of the elephant in the room no one wishes to talk about. It will additionally cover more general parenting and childhood topics which many young parents face. It is my hope that it may inspire you to re-evaluate your advocacy role in the relationship with your child’s school district and the critical issue of gun reform legislation.  In the end, the internal beliefs which you have cultivated will have helped foster the confidence in knowing “I’ve got this”.