Lockdowns, Emergency Situations and the Highly Sensitive Child
Ask anyone at Joffe the secret to safety success, and you’ll more often than not hear some variation on the themes of preparation, practice, and practice one more time for good measure. This safety preparation may take on many forms in regards to your school. Business Continuity Planning, visitor management, and Incident Command Structure are but a few examples of that. Students, however, mostly experience safety prep through drills.
As our understanding of school safety has evolved, so has the type and breadth of drills done on campus. In the past, a half-hearted fire drill every few months may have sufficed, but no longer. Our understanding of what schools needed in that area has evolved. In tandem with that evolution, we notice children struggling with issues or with needs during emergency drills and situations that were ignored or dismissed in years past. Conducting school emergency drills are more prone to cause distress in certain children than others. This day in age we are noticing more children with issues and needs not paid attention to in years past. Something as important as a lockdown can send a child into a worried state that may manifest itself in negative ways for a long time.
Conducting lockdown or other school emergency drills causes more distress in certain children than others. Both children and adults can be “Highly Sensitive”, which according to Sandra Clifton, M.ED., BCET, describes individuals who sense and process incoming information more acutely than others. This results in profound reactions, including stress, nightmares, and anxiety. It is estimated that between 12 and 15 percent of any given population (perhaps a school community?) is highly sensitive. These common symptoms caused by high sensitivity are often overlooked or misdiagnosed.
Many sufferers are designated incorrectly as having ADHD or other similar issues. Generally speaking, highly sensitive people are creative and empathetic to their surroundings. Things such as noises, smells and all other actions picked up by our senses are more powerful to them. Some sufferers cannot regulate or sort this sensory information well and it is the source of anxiety and distress.
It is important to include counselors, teachers, students, and parents in a larger conversation that helps preemptively identify and help students who may be susceptible to negative reactions. Prior to a drill, that might mean you consider the tone of what is to come, educate students on what to expect, and clearly communicate the amount of time the drill will be “live.” A great resource and partner on this front is with a school counselor or psychologist, who can help design a program and communicate clearly and kindly.
During the drill, individuals with high sensitivity should be monitored, and exposure to new or intense stimuli noted and avoided as much as possible. Some of that is done in the pre-work we touched on already, but of course there is only so much planning around high sensitivity. In a real emergency situation, we likely won’t be able to design our perfect environment and must adjust. Keeping some sense of safety, a sense of routine, and a sense of individual self can help highly sensitive children stay calm when emergency strikes. Go-Bags that children can grab on the way out of the classroom are a potential help here. Fill a Ziploc bag with a change of clothes, small toy or important item, and other comforts that reassure the student of the temporary nature of what’s going on.
After the drill or real emergency situation is over, special attention must be paid to these children.That doesn’t mean they should be treated like they’re in bubble wrap, but they should be front of mind, under a watchful eye, and the focus of a bit more attention while the school transitions back to business as usual. Without these safeguards being implemented, your school runs the risk of creating additional problems at the time when it can least afford them, an emergency. Consideration of all factors should be the guiding principle of drill preparation and emergency planning, and highly sensitive students are a reality of the world. Without proper planning as we practice for or recover from intense situation, we may be doing more harm than good, despite our best intentions.
