Parenting Counts: Raise Your Children To Resist Violence

Parents obviously have an enormous influence on the children they raise.  Although parenting and family environment are not the total determining factor, parents can do plenty to reduce violence in children.

Here are some ideas and suggestions:

Give your Child consistent love and attention.

Showing love and providing attention, even when disciplining, builds a sense of trust and provides the child with a sense of security.

Have a real relationship with your child.

Know who they are and what their life involves.  Knowing your child makes it less likely that they will feel the need to hide their feelings from you.  Children who feel able to express their feelings are less likely to act out their feelings with violence.

Make sure your children are supervised.

Children may never admit it, but knowing you are supervised reduces anxiety and fosters a sense of security.  Children should be supervised at home, at school, and during extracurricular activities.

Teach your child proper behavior by example.

Children who witness violence are much more likely to act out.  Teach your child how to express anger appropriately by your example (don?t throw things, curse, or teach retaliation.)

Be consistent with rules and discipline.

Children need to know what to expect.  Consistent rules and discipline reduce anxiety and also increases a child?s sense of security.  Inconsistent rules and disclipline sets up children to see what they can get away with.  (Human beings develop by checking out the boundaries in their environment, a lack of structure encourages unacceptable behavior.)

Limit the amount of violence your child sees in the media.

There is now very little doubt that witnessing violence on TV, movies, and video games can have a negative effect on children.  Make an effort to control what you can.

• Limit TV to 1 to 2 hours per day
• Make sure you know what they watch and see
• Talk to your children about what they see on TV, movies, etc.
• Talk about the realities of violence, the pain and the consequences
• Talk about non violent problem solving

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