The other day, I learned the sign for “lockdown drill” from my five-year-old. He was playing with Magna-tiles, building a barn-turned-garage-turned school, updating me with news of each iteration. Then, when it became a school, there was a lockdown drill. I can’t find a video of the sign he used—Philly has a particularly strong accent in ASL—and it was different than “lockdown” sign we used in the early quarantine days. It was a specific sign for the mass and simultaneous lockdown of multiple rooms; it was especially for schools.

As a parent, I think I’d have to have to have my head pretty deep in the sand not to feel some level of anxiety about sending my kids to school in a nation that chooses violence, again and again, over almost everything else. But there was something about seeing the sign from K that made the hurt even more visceral. Had I really brought him to this country, for this? After years of language deprivation and a life in a new place, K has a relatively limited vocabulary compared to his peers. I hated that this was taking space as one of those words.

If my five-year-old is “playing lockdown drill,” with his blocks, is it really any surprise to us that our children are experiencing rising levels of anxiety, depression, and death by suicide?