So in response to the lack of outward progress in preventing another school shooting like the one in Parkland, Florida, high school students all around this fine, flawed country of ours have decided to stage walkouts. They are leaving school grounds, and walking around during school hours so that their voices can be heard. They are tired of living in fear, tired of lawmakers not tweaking gun laws and tired of feeling like powerless kids at the knee of powerful, yet ineffective adults.

I was a teenager once so I understand that natural angst and restlessness constantly bubbles inside of them. They are at that weird age between being take care of by their parents yet preparing for post-high school life. They are dating, their bodies are changing, they have endless amounts of information at their fingertips, and so they have access to way more information than teens in past years--present company included. That part I get. But when you add in the very real threat of being shot at or killed during a seemingly innocuous school day, you add in a level of fear and terror, I know nothing about---at least from their perspective. I worry about that as a parent now with my six year old, but that's part of the omnipresent overprotective feeling of being a parent. I can't imagine what these teens are thinking and feeling on a daily basis.

But I do know this...I am not a fan of the walkouts. Not at all.

I have already established that my worries as a teen were tame compared to the concerns of these kids, so please know that I'm not turning a blind eye to that fact. Having said that, when I was that age, my father made it very clear, that my job was to go school, get good grades and prepare myself for post-high school life. He didn't want me misbehaving or dillydallying in school, because those type of things (and yes those are clinical terms) hindered, not helped my ability to achieve our final goal.

If my son wanted to walk out of school, I know that I ultimately could not stop him from doing so especially if all of his friends were following suit. But I would pull him aside before he left that day, and request that as long as a teacher (an unarmed one for now) was in front of the class, it was my expectation that he'd be sitting right there learning as he would be doing any other day--not because he (or I) was turning a blind eye to the greater movement--but because that was his job during school hours. Then, I would sit down with my son and brainstorm about 5-10 other ways he could adeptly make his point that he was not happy with the guns, the shootings and the lack of real change. I'd also let him know that walkouts are fine, but there are other ways to be just as effective and just as radical. Maybe he could write a letter to a newspaper, record a message on youtube and circulate it profusely, go to a very public place durng non-school hours with a megaphone and talk from the heart. I'd throw out ideas, I'd listen to his and maybe we could come to a compromise.

My son could very well end up telling me to go f**k myself (figuratively, not literally of course) and that he wanted to be involved in the walkout and I'd have to respect. But he'd have to respect the fact that I didn't like it, and he'd also have to endure me coming up with alternative suggestions for how to protest. I think that's a fair exchange.

If he were a college student, he'd have carte blanche, but as a high school student, I don't think that much leeway should be granted. As I typed this out, I realized that I sound conservative as hell, but frankly, I am like that with a few aspects of my life. You get like that as a parent sometimes I suppose...