Newtown, Connecticut: Parents’ fear v. Parents’ other fear

With 28 people dead anyone with a heart could only feel and pray for the families of the children murdered. How do the parents send their children back to school? How do parents not fear what could happen, again? There is talk of armed guards in every school and additional gun control laws. But will any of that work? The schools will have to figure out how to protect the children. The schools will need a plan. They need a plan to make sure that there isn’t an over-reaction where they do more harm than good. If a situation arises where the school believes that a child could be a threat, how do they handle that belief? How strong does that belief need to be? Does any belief warrant having the child arrested and treated like a criminal – without the child having first done anything wrong – and involuntarily evaluated over the parents objections? How will something like that affect a child?

Parents rightly fear that someone will try to hurt their children. How far will we go to allow the school to take away a child – and a parent’s rights – to evaluate any potential threat? That’s another parent fear. There is a balance to be found and it needs to be found promptly.