Sarah text messaged early this morning as she was being evacuated from her school for a bomb threat. We sat at home and text messaged for a few hours before she sent the “everyone is checking out now” message. Doug went to the school and learned we had fallen for the old “everybody” trick. What to do? Check her out because lots of other parents were doing it? Be paranoid that the bomb squad missed something when they swept the school? Leave her at school? There is no parent training for bomb threats.
The “bomb threat” chapter is missing from my parenting book, too. I don’t know what I’d do. I always think that it’s a relatively brave thing to get back on an airplane or go right back into a building after it has been “swept for bombs”. I know that the great majority of threats are hoaxes, but still…
Oy. I don’t know what I’d do. We tried to pull our Kate out of pre-K when 9/11 happened and they really fought us. They wanted her to stay in the school, which was under lockdown. (She only went 2 1/2 hours a day, but things were escalating and we felt better if she were with us. We KNEW she only had about 45 minutes left of school, but we didn’t care!)
I’d just check her out and treat it as an extra holiday.
I am a Very. Bad. Mother. 😉