Fire Drill Issue

My son is in 3rd grade and has had anxiety to fire drills since the beginning of 1st grade. He says he is scared of the alarm. He wants weather that is not nice on school days meaning no fire drill today. If there is nice weather on a school day, he will panic and refuse to go to school. His teachers tried telling him in advance but that didn't work. One time when he was told there would be one he climbed onto the teacher and disrupted the entire class. The teacher told his therapist that it was the worst behavior she saw in a long time. After that we tried taking him out of the school before it went off. But the first time he tried this he said he could still hear the alarm and the plan wasn't a good idea. He said that he doesn't want to hear the alarm AT ALL. Please help!

[mjthewriterdad]

Funny how schools and the workplace have different alarms.  In schools it is this loud annoying horn that causes AC's to freeze and go into a panic rage.   At the workpolace it is some PA announcement tape "A fire has been detected in the building.  Please proceed to the nearest exit."

[MJIthewriter]

Ouch! The drill hurts his ears; I mean actual physical pain, not just imagined pain.  I had a horrible time with fire drills. I could still stand to go to school, but I'll tell you I'd get on an macho anxiety attack once that siren blasted off... I felt my eardrums busting like an explosion (whether that was true probably not) but it sure felt that way! I'd cover my ears. I found pushing the upper part of the ear down and holding it tight helped a little, but that meant I had no free hands.

I'd bolt as fast as I could out the door. I guess the drill served its purpose... but geesh, I wonder, there's got to be a better sound frequency out there that can still wake people up that have dozed off in math or English, but not be ear popping painful torture like...[insert concentration camp name here]…

On a side note there are telephones in our house that cause the same reaction when they ring. No wonder why I turn the ringer off or cover my ears rather than answer the darn thing…