Bad weather drills

Since we don't live in an area that tends to get hurricanes or tornados (though tornados have come close), we don't have bad weather drills. My children sometimes are frightened by the weather thinking it might be a tornado. As for drills, they think they are fun. Right now I am frustrated because the school buses have been cancelled since last Thursday. That is four school days in a row with no buses. When there are no buses kids tend not to go to school. My 13yo won't go but my 10yo insists on going (they walk to school). Actually almost cried this morning when I told her not to go. Why were there no buses this morning? The sun was shining all day long. It maddens me. Most schools actually closed. Too cold was the reason. Boo-hoo! This is Canada, you know? What are they doing up in Alaska or the Northwest Territories? Two more school days this week, then a professional development day for the teachers and then it's March break. They might as well make March break two weeks! Our kids are learning nothing and will be punished for it by having teachers cram homework down their throats when they finally get back to classes.

I know we had drills like that in school and they never scared me, or anyone else i knew. We had earthquake, fire, and tsunami drills. Then when i was in HS we had bomb threat drills, as we had a few bomb threats during my senior year. Many of the kids may be frightened, but its better they pratice for something that could happen, rather then have a mass panic when and if something like that happened. I would take the time to reassure my child that things happen, and as long as we prepare for them, we will be safe. But i would rather have my kids prepared for things that can happen. At our house, its bears, we have bears on the property in the summer. My son will be 3, and he needs to know what to do if he sees or hears a bear, or if the dogs act like there is one around. Its about being safe and preparing for something that could happen.

Well in California it is common to have the earthquake drill, so I guess you could say it is normal and a good thing to practice. Especially with your Hurricanes. And even further in history, it was common for the air raid drill in schools.

My older kids are 15 and 12, and have had drills all their lives. They don't think too much about it anymore. They have started to have occasional lockdown drills recently though. I think those got them thinking about it a little though. It's hard not to with all the stuff that's in the news every week or so. They seem to roll with it though. I remember when I was in school, my town was next to the Air Force base with the Strategic Air Command - the #2 target for the Russians during the cold war (after D.C.). We actually had nuclear drills. Basically it was the same as a tornado drill for us at school, but the sirens in the whole town would go off once a month. Most people just went about their business, but we had actual nuclear fallout shelter signs all over the place. We didn't really worry about it too much, because we knew that if we ever got nuked, we wouldn't be around to get to a shelter...