Stories like Nicole Hockley’s should never have to be told.
When Hockley sent her first-grader to school on December 14th, 2012, she had no idea that their morning goodbye would be their last. But 6-year-old Dylan — along with 19 other children and 6 faculty members — would never come home to their families, instead falling victim to the unimaginable tragedy of the Sandy Hook school shooting.
“As a parent, you never think it could be you,” Hockley wrote for SheKnows on the 12th anniversary of the day she lost her son.
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Letting grief compel her forward, Hockley co-founded Sandy Hook Promise to honor her son and all the others killed in the senseless act: a nonprofit group dedicated to protecting children from gun violence in the places they should feel most safe.
Recently, the organization polled around 1,000 parents of children 17 and under. Of those, 4 in 10 parents said they feel “uncertain, frustrated or hopeless” about preventing violence in schools. Nearly half of the parents said they worried about gun violence at their child’s school on a monthly basis, while 40 percent reported having those fears weekly or even daily. But that isn’t all; parents also overwhelmingly feel that this issue is literally changing the carefree nature of childhood as we know it — and Sandy Hook Promise’s gut-wrenching new PSA highlights this.
The new PSA shines a spotlight on a sad reality: Gun violence truly has changed our kids’ childhood experience, and the teddy bear is a perfect symbol of this. “Following the tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary in 2012, more than 60,000 bears were sent to Newtown, Connecticut — so many that a storage facility was required,” says a press release from Sandy Hook Promise. “These comfort objects, meant for playtime and companionship, have since become a go-to object placed at memorials.”
For Hockley and the other founders of Sandy Hook Promise, whose children didn’t get a fraction of the childhood they deserved, this is simply unacceptable. “From our research, we know that 80% of parents feel that the threat of violence in schools has affected childhood in America today. At Sandy Hook Promise, we also know that school shootings are preventable when you know the signs, and that we all have a role to play in preventing this cycle from continuing,” Hockley tells SheKnows. “With this PSA, we want to drive home the message that childhood doesn’t have to be this way and encourage parents, educators, students and caring adults to learn the signs, so we can help ensure the innocent, carefree childhood our kids deserve.”
According to the most recent data, released late last year, guns killed more children and teens (age 1 through 17) than any other cause — including car crashes and cancer. It’s a daunting statistic, to be sure, but there’s reason to be hopeful: Sandy Hook Promise’s Know the Signs programs and Say Something anonymous reporting system have helped stop at least 18 planned school shootings — most recently at Mooresville High School in Indiana — and many other acts of suicide and self-harm. To confirm a prevented attack, they use a strict review process that checks for a clear threat, a plan, access to a weapon, and where the information came from.
As Hockley says, childhood doesn’t have to be this way. Parents, let’s make sure it isn’t.
Learn more about how to make a change here.
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