Editor's Note: Here are tips on how to talk to your kids about school violence.
Moms Talk is a weekly feature on all Lehigh Valley Patches in which local parents, caregivers and other members of the community are invited to share opinions and advice on parenting topics.
In the wake of a the tragic elementary school shooting on Friday in Newtown, Conn., this week’s Moms Talk question relates to a topic on every parent’s mind right now – the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting.
After all, countless lives will never be the same after this.
Even here, in the Lehigh Valley, our lives as parents and caregivers will never be the same.
I know mine won’t. I have two kids. I was taking care of my sick older child, who I had picked up from school earlier in the day, when I first learned of the shooting – on Facebook of all places. He’d been sent to the nurse’s office because he wasn’t feeling well, and was battling a pretty high fever. I was in his room trying to sneak in a little bit of work, posting items to the Emmaus Patch Facebook page, while he tossed and turned in a fitful, feverish sleep.
That’s when I first saw the headlines coming out of Connecticut.
I left his room to read the “full story” and it didn’t take more than a sentence or two before I started to cry, something I cannot remember ever happening to me upon reading a news story. My first instinct was to rush to the elementary school and pick up my “baby.” I am sure that I am not the only parent who felt this way.
Which brings us to this week’s Moms Talk question:
What was your first instinct as a parent, after learning about the tragic shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut? Did you follow through on that instinct?
Our Moms Council members include:
- Lisa Amey of Upper Milford Township is a stay-at-home mother of two. A past president of the MOMS Club of Emmaus and longtime member of MOPs (Mothers of Preschoolers), Lisa is an Independent Consultant for Arbonne International.
- Lisa Drew of Emmaus is a certified nutritionist and personal trainer, wellness and fitness coach with more than 17 years of experience. She is the mother of a 13-year-old girl and a 9-year-old boy.
- Jennifer Elston of Emmaus has almost two decades of professional experience in child development and counseling. She is currently a stay-at-home mom to two beautiful girls. Together with her husband, Chris, she owns Christopher Elston Photography.
- Jeanne Lombardo of Nazareth is the mother of a 10-year-old boy and a 5-year-old girl. She’s new to the Lehigh Valley, having moved to Nazareth from Bergen County, NJ in January.
- Lisa Merk of Lower Macungie is a stay-at-home mother of four boys – a 12-year-old and 6-year-old triplets. Lisa is a past president of the MOMS Club of Lower Macungie East. In her “spare” time, Lisa teaches piano to school-age children.
- Zoila Bonilla Paul of Bethlehem is a stay-at-home mom to two girls – a 5-year-old and a 14-month-old. Zoila is a member of her local “moms’ club” and says she is “well-versed in the fun that children can bring.”
- Beth Sharpless of Emmaus works part time in a local emergency department as a nurse and part time from home as a customer support specialist. She has two children -- a boy who is 3 and a 6-year-old girl. She says they love spending time outdoors and dancing.
If you would like to become a part of the Moms Council and/or have ideas for future Moms Talk questions, please email jennifer.marangos@patch.com.
Unfortunately in the USA the $ supersedes morality and the $ is the true God in that country. For the right price anything can be made to be legal and acceptable If only the bad things could 1 st happen to these money hungry hypocrites ie if these innocent kids were the kids or grand kids of the NRA or crooked politicians only then will there be a change As far as I am concern they have blood on their hands
Top list are the lowest percentage gun ownership states Second list is the lowest death by gun per 100,000 The NRA rides this Elephant into the Room telling you its a horse. There is a direct corellation between those states that have fewer guns and those states that have fewer deaths by guns. • 40. Delaware - 25.5% • 41. Florida - 24.5% • 42. California - 21.3% • 42. Maryland - 21.3% • 44. Illinois - 20.2% • 45. New York - 18% • 46. Connecticut - 16.7% • 47. Rhode Island - 12.8% • 48. Massachusetts - 12.6% • 49. New Jersey - 12.3% • 50. Hawaii - 6.7% 40 Delaware 8 41 Iowa: 6.7 42 Maine: 6.5 43 Minnesota: 6.0 44 New Hampshire: 5.8 45 Rhode Island: 5.1 46 New York: 5.1 47 New Jersey: 4.9 48 Connecticut: 4.3 49 Massachusetts: 3.1 50 Hawaii: 2.8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CTbhVlHuONo
Hint ... These nuts (and criminals) are cowards. They virtually always pick places with large populations of disarmed, vulnerable people. (see Columbine, VA Tech, the movie theater in Aurora, the mall in Portland ... virtually all of the sites of multiple shootings such as this were "gun free zones" ... not so "gun free" after all, were they?) "Gun free zones" give victims a false sense of security, but they give criminals and nuts real security by assuring that they won't meet any effective resistance quickly enough to prevent their evil deeds. Eliminating the deadly fallacy of "gun-free zones" will prevent most of these crimes, by eliminating the certainty that they can be accomplished without the threat of resistance. Even in the remaining cases, it will at least allow them to be stopped before they can rack up such high body counts. How many innocent men, women, and children have to die in this country before the madness of prohibiting good people the means of self-defense is ended? And, before someone says that the good people shooting back to stop these nuts will just kill more innocents, the federal government's own statistics show that armed civilians acting in self-defense (or the defense of others) are more than 5.5 times LESS likely than the police to accidentally shoot an innocent person.
Chicago, with the tightest gun control in the country, has had nearly 500 killings this year so far. All available data proves that the more people are allowed to have the means to defend themselves, the lower the crime, and that the most effective means is a gun.
People who choose to harm others will always find a way. Either bombs, knives, planes, automobiles, bows, bats, golf clubs....the list can go on. Harsher punishments need to be in place for those who choose the misuse weapons. Guns dont kill, people kill.
My school is a private, Catholic school with less than 400 students K-12. I know every student in the high school, and a good number of the younger children as well. When I heard what had happened, my heart felt like it was breaking. I was stunned, speechless...crying as my friend read aloud one of the news reports. I wanted to go and find all of my kids and hug them. I wanted to forget every time I grew irritated with them or sent them out into the hall. I wanted them to know that even though this tragedy happened far from the doors of our school, we would stand united with the students and community of Sandy Hook. Yes, I don't have children of my own flesh, but every student who comes through my classroom door is my child. I couldn't fathom losing a student, or a child, or a sibling in this massacre and I am not going to pretend like I understand what it is like. I don't, and I pray I never will. I love teaching, my job, my kids...so many little details that only my fellow teacher friends get. I can't imagine what the CT community is going through. I don't know how I can help except to protect my kids from all I can with what I have.