The Great CA Shake Out has now Pissed me off!!!

[Garciamommyof3]

I am all for teaching children to be prepared in case of an emergency and showing them what to do, we have gone over most of the safety drills with our girls and they all know what to do in case of an emergency. They know our safe word in case they are not with out during an emergency, have meet firefighters in their gear so that if they ever need rescued by one, they will not be afraid of the big robot/alien coming to get them.

Last Thursday, the state of California participated in what is called the great shake out; it is an earthquake drill that the whole state practices at the same time. This occurs during school hours so theschools can make sure everyone is prepared in case it ever happens for real at school. Some schools go through the regular drill of ducking under tables then walking to a field and waiting until they are given the OK to go back to class. Some schools are given scenarios like they school collapsed and now the entire school must walk to the next school that is closest to them. My mom said her school got this one this year and had to walk 1/2-1 to another school for all classes and all students from Kindergarten to 6th grade!!! Then one very lucky school gets to pretend they have injured/dead people and need rescued. For this school, all the rescue services practice what they would do in case it was real and so they pick students and teachers from each class to play the helpless injured people and wait to be rescued.

My middle daughters teacher told me the week before that this was going to take place on the day i come in to volunteer to help with homework packets. The needed a volunteer for this day to help keep an eye on the class while they were outside. It is a kindergarten class and I am the only mom that has volunteered for them on a regular basis. This goes for both of the classes; it is a bi-literate school and the students spend have their day with one teacher and then the two classes switch and they spend the rest of the day with the other teacher; Half in English and half in Spanish. So I was going to help out with the English teacher and really didn't think anything about. We were one of the lucky schools that just had a regular drill. I arrived shortly after school started and the teaching assistant made sure I knew I would have to participate.

We were told the principal would come on the intercom, shaking a can for 1-3 minutes and then give us the all clear to head out to the field. The teachers spent the first hour of the day talking to the kids about what to do if there was an earthquake, how to get under the tables to stay safe and things like that. At 10 am the drill was about to start. We tried to make the kids sit on the carpet for carpet time so we could make it as if it was a normal day when the drill started.

10:15- an announcement starts on the intercom thanking everyone for participating. It is a prerecorded announcement and was played everywhere. Then it goes to explain that you should be under a table in case something starts falling. It explained what to do in case you were in a car, under a bridge, in the open, in an office, at school, where to hide in each situation, what could happen, like pictures falling off the wall. At the time, I didn't think anything about it. We waited until the message was done, waited to see if the principle came on to say we were clear to go outside, she didn't and so we lined the kids up and walked them out. We played games and read stories and had a nice morning outside. After the kids came in, did a little work, at lunch and had a normal afternoon. I left around 2pm to pick up my friends kids from another school and my girls rode the bus home. When they came home they told us all about their cool experiences that day. Everything seemed great, no problems.

So that night we put our girls to bed; the girl we are taking over guardianship of was spending the night but we let her stay up a little later than the little girls. When I finally tol her she should start heading to bed, we heard one of the girls taking to the other. I went in and listened thinking they were trying to hide the fact they weren't asleep and was shocked by what I heard. My 5 year old Isabelle was crying and trying to wake up her 7 year old sister Abigail. She was saying, "Abby, wake up! Wake up, Abby! We have to get out of here. It's an earthquake and (something inaudible) is going to fall on us and KILL us!! Wake up Wake up! Our bed is going to fall. Abby wake up!!!!!" I asked," Izzy, what a matter what are you talking about." No answer so I called her again. Her head popped up from next to her sister, (they share a bed the nights the other girl sleeps at our house), and in the most sleepy voice I have ever heard with her eyes closed, "what mommy? I am sleeping." "What's wrong are you OK? I heard you crying." "I wasn't crying, I am sleeping!" She laid her head back down and went back to sleep.

I swear to you, the next morning when we asked her what was wrong, why she was crying, if she had a bad dream or something, she had no clue what we were talking about. Kinda like how someone who snores really load doesn't think they snore, she doesn't think she cried or anything. It has happened ever night since then about one to two hours after she falls asleep. Every time the part that she dreams about is different but it is one of the things that were talked about in the announcement. One night she thought they were falling off a bridge; another the glass windows were breaking at daddy's work. One night I caught her trying to hold the poster by the bed on the wall thinking it was a picture frame about to fall!!!

Like I said, I have no problem with teaching them about being prepared, but it should be in an appropriate manner for their age group, not something that is made for everyone! One size does not fit all in this situation. Go back to the can of beans shaking on the intercom, PLEASE!!! I want to go to bed and not have to worry about her screaming and crying anymore. She seems OK though since she doesn't even remember any of the times she has done it and thinks we are making it all up. Oh, my husband says I do the same thing, I have conversations with him and then never remember having them. For example, one morning he go and left early for work. He woke me up before he left to tell me he was out of white work shirts and if I could bleach a load that day so he could have one ready that afternoon. I said sure and asked him a couple questions; he answered and left. when he came home, the load wasn't washed and I had no recollection of the conversation!

Anyone else have anything similar, to any part of this?