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Health & Fitness

Can I Keep My Child Safe at College?

A local mom's reaction and perspective on the Virginia Tech shut down.

Virginia Tech was locked down yesterday, after three children attending summer camp reported seeing a man walking quickly through campus with what looked like a handgun. This is the college that suffered a remarkable tragedy in 2007 when a student opened fire and massacared 33 people on campus.

When I heard the news, I went cold for a minute. My mind raced, students were locked in classrooms, is that really a good idea? Thank God the university had an improved alert system in place. What about the students and people outside? Please, I don't want any more parents to lose a child. This is terrible for Virgina Tech. This is terrible for all universities.

As I listened to the events unfold, the university explained: "We're in a new era," university spokesman Larry Hincker said. "Obviously this campus experienced something pretty terrible four years ago. ... Regardless of what your intuition and your experience as a public safety officer tells you, you are really forced to issue an alert, and that's where we believe we are right now."

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My mind reeled when I heard those words. My oldest child graduated from Arizona State University and lived on campus at the time of the first Virginia Tech attack. I remember calling him to ask if he had heard the news and if ASU was on any type of alert. The school had not issued an alert but was monitoring the VA Tech situation closely. I think all education institutions were holding their breaths as were parents and the rest of America and the world.

My son, like most, did not have any incident while attending college. As a parent, the VA Tech tragedy made us more aware that he was far away from home. I had to draw strength and comfort from the knowledge that life is meant to be lived with enthusiasm and grace and I could not control when a crisis would occur. However, we were once again reminded there are real and viable threats within our own communities and we needed to learn how to identify threats and how to cope when this happened.

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When my daughter began to look at universities three years ago and as we began to narrow down the possibilities, the VA Tech incident did flash into my thoughts.

At the student parent orientations, questions were fielded by university reps. How safe is the community? Ok, normal consideration whenever your 17-year-old is about to move away. What is the alert system of the university if there is an attack on campus? Really, we now have to ask this question? How will we communicate if the campus is shutdown? I don't remember my mom and I discussing this when I went off to college, let alone a campus wide response system.  I vaguelly recalled a bomb drill at school in 2nd grade.

My perspective had been changed and I resented it. I want my daughter to enjoy her college experience. It's a time I find precious since I consider it the last "hoorah" of childhood; a time when you have one foot in the adult world and the other in the remnants of childhood. It should be a time of gradual maturation, ideally without any type of colossal tragedy.

So, my daughter is off and on her own. Loving her freedom. I am thrilled to watch her grow and experience all that life has to offer but I am her mom and while I am not hoovering over her, my thoughts for her safety and those around her cross my mind. I know my mom worried about these things too and her mom worried about her safety when she left home for the United States. We do what we can but we must live life with enthusiam and grace, and so must our children.

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