by Tara Shafer posted in Parenting

Today I sent my daughter to school even though she was a little anxious about going. I don't want to overstate this, or attempt to interpret her kid fear. Her worries come out in unexpected ways. This morning she told me that it made her sad that as kids get older, parents get further away. I told her I'd be here anytime she needed me to be -- she could circle back.
I watched her standing there. She was waiting for the bus with her lunch box in her hand and I thought she looked pretty brave. She has questions. She is not special this way. She is like every other student in the country right now. She, like her millions of her peers, got onto the bus this morning and soldiered off to school.
"Are you sure nobody is going to shoot me at my school"" my daughter asks with more trepidation than with abject fear. She is not scared as much as she is checking in. As much as she is just being sure. It is her reality, this. She just wants reassurance.
I offer the reassurance I can to my daughter. I brush her hair. She ties her shoes.
I can do that. Reassurance seems like the right course. Many things are dangerous to kids and they really don't need to know all that. That seems like too much truth. I tell her the truth I can tell her.

Which is to say that I tell her that the job of grown-ups is to keep kids safe. So that they can learn about the Arctic and the water cycle. And I tell her that parents and students are working to do th...