Prevent Learning Loss By Making Your Child Practice Active Shooter Drills During Their Summer Vacation

While your child experiences the many joys of summertime, it is crucial that she continues to engage with the material she learned during the school year. The way to prevent summer learning loss and retain useful knowledge is to set aside time during their vacation to practice active shooter drills at home.

Children whose lockdown skills lapse will enter the next school year at a major disadvantage. While other students are learning more advanced self-defense and shooter tackling techniques, your child may not remember the basics of bullet avoidance.

Here are some strategies to keep your child engaged during the off-peak shooting season:

1. Visit your public library for summertime active shooter programs.
The library has a wide selection of mass shooting opportunities, from the youth storytime section to the teen fiction section and the long row of exposed computer stations. Ask your librarian about group barricading sessions and suggestions for books to use as shields.

2. Have your child attend a summer camp that is fun but also survival-focused.
Your own summer camp experience may have consisted of s’mores, campfire songs, and arts and crafts. But today’s children benefit from camps that are not only enjoyable, but that also reinforce a run-hide-fight mentality. Do your research to learn which camps most effectively integrate the gunman-avoidance curriculum your child is learning in school.

3. Provide culturally enriching opportunities to practice active shooter drills.
Perhaps you are taking a vacation at the beach, visiting grandma’s house, or even going to the local museum. All of these are occasions to scream “He’s got a gun!” and dive behind the nearest concrete barrier. Your children will understand that the skills they learn in the classroom can apply anywhere, especially in churches, movie theaters, and shopping malls.

4. Set aside time to unplug from electronic devices and enjoy each other’s company in hiding.
Without a structured school day, it is easy for children to become absorbed in their phones or tablets for hours on end. Institute a time each day when all members of the family shut off their devices and spend time with each other to hide in silence behind a locked door.

5. Hire a tutor to reinforce learned concepts of disabling gunmen.
If your child struggles to retain complex principles, he may require extra attention from an experienced tutor. A retired police captain, sheriff’s deputy, or FBI agent may be useful in remediating state learning standards, such as how to incapacitate a shooter with a fire extinguisher or piece of lightweight furniture.

Practicing for random assault weapon volley may not be your child’s ideal way of spending summer vacation. But consider this: when they show up on the first day of school and demonstrate how much they remember, the teacher will breathe a sigh of relief that at least one of her students will survive a mass shooting on grade level.