Here are the heartbreaking psychological effects school lockdowns left on 4 million children last year

Every day, 16 schools around the U.S. undergo a lockdown. Nine of them stem from the threat of gun violence.

Most of these incidents end without incident, The Washington Post found in an extensive analysis published Wednesday. But they've left students texting love letters to their families and writing wills that include their PlayStations as they huddle in darkened classroom corners.

In a corner of MaKenzie Woody's Washington, D.C. classroom, there's a "taped-up list of phrases the kids were encouraged to say to each other" during a lockdown, the Post writes. They include "I like you, "you’re a rainbow," and "are you okay?" Woody is 6 years old and has "never heard of Parkland or Sandy Hook or Columbine," the Post writes. But she's still afraid of going outside for recess "because what if someone was shooting ... and everybody got hurt," she said.

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In the 2017-18 school year, at least 4.1 million students underwent 6,200 lockdowns across the U.S., the Post's analysis of school district data and news stories found. One million of the affected students were in elementary school. And yet that number is probably low "because many school districts — including in Detroit and Chicago — do not track [lockdowns] and hundreds never make the news," the Post says.

The threats that spark these attacks are "often anonymous and seldom legitimate," the Post writes. Still, "experts who specialize in childhood trauma suspect that a meaningful percentage" of students will undergo psychological effects for years to come. Read the whole analysis at The Washington Post.