[blparent] Lockdown Drill at School
Kate McEachern
kflsouth at gmail.com
Sun Jan 12 22:15:40 UTC 2014
Over the years on many lists, I've learnt the golden rule. dont reply to give others attention. And don't reply if it you think it will make you look like an ass. Reading a message and taking it the wrong way and blowing up works against you, but responding to people just being jerks also works against you. you don't. Have to respond. So in my case, I just don't bother responding.
Kate
Sent from my iPhone
> On Jan 12, 2014, at 4:09 PM, "Jennifer Stewart Jackson" <jennifersjackson at att.net> wrote:
>
> Joe Elizabeth,
>
> I know Gabe seems to go out of his way to antagonize you on the list and so often posts things that make one or more of us respond defensively too. Please know that most of us know this about him and disregard such comments, except to perhaps roll our eyes. Please do not feel you have to defend yourself here, because we already know. Believe me, I know the temptation though as I hit reply to one of his messages earlier this week too.
>
>
> Jenifer
> -----Original Message-----
> From: blparent [mailto:blparent-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Jo Elizabeth Pinto
> Sent: Sunday, January 12, 2014 3:09 PM
> To: Blind Parents Mailing List
> Subject: Re: [blparent] Lockdown Drill at School
>
> My daughter never mentioned my blindness. The health aide did. My daughter never said she was worried about her blind mom at home, and feeling she had to take care of me. That never came into play from her perspective at all.
>
> Jo Elizabeth
>
> Truth is tough. It will not break, like a bubble, at a touch; nay, you may kick it about all day like a football, and it will be round and full at evening.--Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Gabe Vega - CEO Commtech LLC
> Sent: Sunday, January 12, 2014 9:53 AM
> To: Blind Parents Mailing List
> Cc: Blind Parents Mailing List
> Subject: Re: [blparent] Lockdown Drill at School
>
> i've seen this with sided parents as well, so to be honest, I don't know what the big deal is and what the connection to blindness is. Alyssa how they've specifically said the Woodbine, I don't think there's any room for concern here. If she did mention blindness, then I agree, it is concerning very concerning in fact that your daughter feels she have to's take care of her mother, not because she's alone at home, but strictly because she's blind. If you were cited, I don't think your daughter would feel this way
>
> Gabe Vega - CEO
> Commtech LLC
> The leader of computer support, training and web development services
> Web: http://commtechusa.net
> Twitter: http://twitter.com/commtechllc
> Facebook: http://facebook.com/commtechllc
> Email: info at commtechusa.net
> Phone: (888) 351-5289 Ext. 710
> Fax: (480) 535-7649
>
>> On Jan 12, 2014, at 9:46 AM, "Michelle Creedy "
>> <michelle.creedy at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> People pull this stuff all the time. I went with my sister to pick my
>> ppre-school nephew up from school a few years ago and the teacher
>> started on the whole "Oh look how nicely you're taking care of your aunt," thing.
>> He was holding my hand in order to walk out of the school. Of course,
>> my sister saw both sides because deep down, it makes her feel
>> validated that someone is praising her child and showing what a nice little boy he is.
>> Sadly, sometimes, I think having children brings out the worst in
>> families and others.
>>
>> Michelle
>>
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: blparent [mailto:blparent-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of
>> sheila
>> Sent: Saturday, January 11, 2014 3:49 PM
>> To: Blind Parents Mailing List
>> Subject: Re: [blparent] Lockdown Drill at School
>>
>> hi Mark went through a time in which he felt very responsible for dad
>> and I. It didn't help that he was often told by others to take care of
>> mom and dad. If mark was out for recess and saw us leaving the house
>> he would worry about whether we got home okay. We tried to leave when
>> we knew he was in class hoping he would settle down. We had a very
>> suppportive pediatrician so when things came up at school dealing with
>> mark or our blindness we kept him in the loop. we had a social worker
>> show up because someone reported among other things that we weren't
>> sending him to school and I informed her of the situation and also let
>> her know that we had reliable witnesses and we never heard from her again.
>>> On 1/11/2014 2:42 PM, Jo Elizabeth Pinto wrote:
>>> Okay, bear with me, because this does have to do with blind
>>> parenting, and we’ll come to that, but it doesn’t start out that way.
>>> Sometimes things get really compicated, and my questions are one, is
>>> there anything I’m missing that I can do to reassure my daughter that
>>> I haven’t thought of? And two, am I right to keep the school
>>> counselor out of this, or am I paranoid? I admit I am, a little. My
>>> feeling is, once the psychologist gets involved, an issue is made
>>> where there wasn’t one, and it’s really hard to get rid of the
>>> professionals once they’re sniffing around. And once someone hints
>>> that blindness might be part of the problem, which I don’t think it
>>> is at all, then you’ve got red flags where they don’t need to be.
>>>
>>> My daughter was already a bit hesitant about going back to school
>>> after Christmas Break. Vacation was long, and she was starting in
>>> with the “I’ll miss you too much” stuff. I don’t know why; she likes
>>> school and has friends, so I figured she’d pop back into the routine
>>> and do fine. I let her wear an inexpensive necklace of mine so she’d
>>> have a tangible connection to me all day and sent her off Tuesday
>>> morning with lots of hugs. Well then—and I think this was poor
>>> timing on the part of the school, but that’s just my opinion, for
>>> what it’s worth—the school held a lockdown drill Tuesday morning. I
>>> didn’t know it at the time. I think parents should be given a
>>> heads-up by automatic phone dialer or e-mail if there’s been a
>>> lockdown drill in case their kids have issues, but whatever. The
>>> only thing that happened Tuesday night was that my daughter mentioned
>>> yet again that she thought she should be home schooled. She’d been
>>> seeing commercials for K-12 Online, a home school academy you can do
>>> on the computer. I dismissed the idea casually, saying it wouldn’t
>>> be a good fit for our family and that she needed to learn at school with her friends, and she went to bed without incident.
>>>
>>> Wednesday morning, out of nowhere, she had the queen mother of all
>>> tantrums, refusing to go to school at all. Kicking, screaming,
>>> ripping her clothes off, insisting she was sick. Her dad tried
>>> holding her down and putting her shoes on by sheer force. I stopped
>>> that because I was afraid either he would break her ankle or she
>>> would kick him in the face and smash his glasses. So I made him
>>> leave her in her room and shut the door till she calmed down. I told
>>> her if she was too sick to go to school, she could go back to bed. That was what sick people did, sleep.
>>> No friends, no toys, no TV, no electronics, nothing. She didn’t like
>>> that idea, so she got dressed and went to school. We took TV away
>>> that night because of the tantrum and because she was late for school
>>> that day. I felt bad later because I didn’t know the motives behind
>>> any of it, but she hadn’t opened up to me.
>>>
>>> Well, about eleven o’clock, her teacher called me, not very happy.
>>> She told me my daughter had been to the health aide—there are no RN’s
>>> in schools now, they’re health aides—three times with a headache and
>>> a tummyache. No temperature. Neither the teacher nor the health
>>> aide believed my daughter was sick. The teacher said she was over
>>> it; she had
>>> 25 other kids to deal with, it was my turn. So I got my daughter on
>>> the phone and said she could either listen to her teacher and do her
>>> schoolwork or come home and go to bed. I wouldn’t get into the “I’m
>>> really sick, Mom” discussion with her. I told her no more trips to
>>> the health aide. Either stay at school and do her work or Dad would
>>> bring her home and she could go to bed.
>>>
>>> Thursday, two more trips to the health aide. That night, my daughter
>>> and I started talking about what was going on. And she told me the
>>> school had done a lockdown drill on Tuesday. In her words, the
>>> office lady had come on the loudspeaker and said they were going to
>>> pretend a man with a gun had run out of the bank and was coming
>>> toward the school. So everybody was going to crawl under desks and
>>> tables till the teachers said it was okay to come out. (I found out
>>> later that nobody came on the intercom and said anything about a gun.
>>> That was either filled in by my daughter’s imagination or by what the
>>> other kids were saying. Kids aren’t stupid. The office person said
>>> it was a lockdown drill, the teacher said a drill might happen if
>>> there were trouble at the bank or in the neighborhood, kids aren’t
>>> stupid. They know what that means. Nobody crawled under desks,
>>> which aren’t bulletproof; they stood along a cinderblock wall lined
>>> with cupboards with no windows, which might be somewhat better I
>>> guess.)
>>>
>>> Anyway, my daughter—bless her heart—wasn’t freaked out for herself.
>>> She thinks she’s one of the Power Puff Girls or Raven from Teen
>>> Titans, so she figures she’ll kick butt and take names wherever she
>>> is. She started thinking about me, here alone. She started worrying
>>> about how old and feeble my guide dog Ballad is getting and what I
>>> would do if the man with the gun ran to the house. So by Tuesday
>>> night after the lockdown drill, she didn’t tell me why, but she
>>> thought she should be home schooled so she could stay with me and be
>>> her superhero self. And by Wednesday morning, she decided she wasn’t
>>> going to school. When we made her go, she tried to get herself sent home sick.
>>>
>>> So I reassured her as best I could. I showed her how the dead bolt
>>> worked and how far it went into the wall, how the door won’t budge an
>>> inch when it’s locked. I made her a pinky promise deal that I’ll
>>> lock the door every day, and that when she leaves with her dad in the
>>> morning, she can check it herself. I sent her outside to ring the
>>> doorbell so she can hear how loud the dog’s bark is from out there.
>>> I reminded her how fast the firemen got here once when we had to call
>>> 911 because the neighbor’s smoke alarm was going off and he wasn’t
>>> home. I said if a man with a gun was running around and I called 911
>>> and told the police, they’d be here that fast. Is there anything I’m
>>> missing as far as reassurances go?
>>>
>>> So anyway, here’s where the blind parenting part comes in, if you’ve
>>> stuck with me this long, and thanks for still reading. I called my
>>> daughter’s teacher to explain all of this because I wanted to let her
>>> know what effects the lockdown drill had—and to find out exactly how
>>> it had happened because I didn’t quite believe the kid version of the story.
>>> I also wanted to explain why my daughter had been pretending to be
>>> sick so much. The teacher is great. She understood. But the health
>>> aide suggested maybe I should have my daughter talk to the school
>>> counselor because she said she thought my daughter felt overly
>>> responsible for me, and that’s not healthy. She said a daughter
>>> shouldn’t feel she has to take care of her mother; a mother should be
>>> taking care of her child. I told her I do take care of my child. I
>>> said I don’t think we’re talking about an unhealthy relationship
>>> here. We’re talking about a little superhero who thinks she’s going
>>> to save the day. There’s a big difference. I don’t believe the
>>> health aide would have come to the same conclusion if I’d been a
>>> sighted mom. So far I believe I’ve held her off, and I’m hoping the
>>> problem resolves itself before her worries go any further. If my
>>> daughter gets sent there with false symptoms again, I asked the
>>> health aide to reassure her that I’m safe and that she checked the
>>> lock with her dad in the morning, instead of focusing on the fact that she isn’t sick, which isn’t the real issue.
>>>
>>> I hate these lockdown drills. I suppose we’re stuck with them in the
>>> world we live in, and hopefully most kids aren’t having the reaction
>>> my daughter is. But we’re stealing the innocence from a whole
>>> generation of kids, and truthfully, I’m not sure the drills would
>>> have prevented any of the tragedies at Columbine. I don’t know, it’s
>>> said they did help at New Town, where kids knew what to do and moved
>>> quickly into position; I just hate that kids have to be burdened with this crap!
>>>
>>> Thanks for sticking with me; it’s been a hell of a week!
>>> Jo Elizabeth
>>>
>>> Truth is tough. It will not break, like a bubble, at a touch; nay,
>>> you may kick it about all day like a football, and it will be round
>>> and full at evening.--Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> blparent mailing list
>>> blparent at nfbnet.org
>>> http://nfbnet.org/mailman/listinfo/blparent_nfbnet.org
>>> To unsubscribe, change your list options or get your account info for
>>> blparent:
>>> http://nfbnet.org/mailman/options/blparent_nfbnet.org/sleigland%40bre
>>> s
>>> nan.net
>>
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> blparent mailing list
>> blparent at nfbnet.org
>> http://nfbnet.org/mailman/listinfo/blparent_nfbnet.org
>> To unsubscribe, change your list options or get your account info for
>> blparent:
>> http://nfbnet.org/mailman/options/blparent_nfbnet.org/michelle.creedy%
>> 40gmail.com
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> blparent mailing list
>> blparent at nfbnet.org
>> http://nfbnet.org/mailman/listinfo/blparent_nfbnet.org
>> To unsubscribe, change your list options or get your account info for
>> blparent:
>> http://nfbnet.org/mailman/options/blparent_nfbnet.org/theblindtech%40g
>> mail.com
> _______________________________________________
> blparent mailing list
> blparent at nfbnet.org
> http://nfbnet.org/mailman/listinfo/blparent_nfbnet.org
> To unsubscribe, change your list options or get your account info for
> blparent:
> http://nfbnet.org/mailman/options/blparent_nfbnet.org/jopinto%40msn.com
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> blparent mailing list
> blparent at nfbnet.org
> http://nfbnet.org/mailman/listinfo/blparent_nfbnet.org
> To unsubscribe, change your list options or get your account info for blparent:
> http://nfbnet.org/mailman/options/blparent_nfbnet.org/jennifersjackson%40att.net
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> blparent mailing list
> blparent at nfbnet.org
> http://nfbnet.org/mailman/listinfo/blparent_nfbnet.org
> To unsubscribe, change your list options or get your account info for blparent:
> http://nfbnet.org/mailman/options/blparent_nfbnet.org/kflsouth%40gmail.com
More information about the BlParent
mailing list