Watch: Viral video of US woman training 5-year-old son to survive a shooting

In the video, the child demonstrated the use of his bulletproof backpack. (Screengrab from video tweeted by @HK)

A video of a five-year-old US boy being trained by his mother for how to protect himself in case of a shootout at his school is gaining massive attention online.

In the video, which has a million likes on TikTok, according to CBS News, the child showed how he will use his bulletproof Spider-Man bag to shield himself if a shooter were to storm his school.

Soon it will be back to #school season. As more and more #shootings every single year in the #USA, many American parents feel anxious. A mom from #Oklahoma shared a video on #TikTok, showing her practicing an active #shooter drill with her young son... #Gun pic.twitter.com/06wquQAn92

— HK POTATO (@HKPOTATO4) August 18, 2022

The child's mother, 22-year-old Cassie Walton from Oklahoma, also told him during the drill that if a shooter were in his classroom, he must "stay absolutely silent" and not respond in case the police asked if anyone was inside.

The US has a long history of gun violence. In 2022 alone, there were 27 shootings at schools, according to NPR.

The deadliest among them took place in Uvalde, Texas, in May, where 19 children and two teachers were gunned down by a teenager.

Walton told CNN she bought her child, who was about to start kindergarten, a bulletproof insert for his backpack after the Uvalde shooting.

Having heard about what happened in Uvalde, Walton's son asked her if a shootout could happen at his school too.

"I tried to answer his question age-appropriately and then I explained to him about the bulletproof backpack," she said. "He knows that is the kind of stuff police officers use."

Walton said her son was not afraid to go to school or do the drill. She added that her drill was the same as was carried out in schools, with only one addition -- the bulletproof backpack.

Many parents praised Walton for preparing her son for a possible shooting but experts said that approach required caution.

"Parents are right to be afraid but what we do about it needs to be looked at very carefully. Bulletproof jackets, AR-15s in schools are possibly long-term, potentially causing psychological and social harm," Bon Avo Astor, social welfare professor at University of California, Los Angeles, told CNN.