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What You Can Do At Home To Support Your Child’s Experience At Pacifica

Over the years, I have noticed that children seem to do best at Pacifica when what happens at home – while allowing for individual family styles – is similar to what happens at school.

Here are some things that I think can help your family get the most out of the Pacifica experience:

1.  Get yourself the support you need. Parenting, although rewarding, can be a hard and tiring job. Being overextended and stressed can make it difficult to be the kind of parent you would like to be. Taking time for yourself and having someone to listen to your concerns is an important step in nonviolent parenting.

2.  Make a personal commitment to stop using physical punishment if you still do. An online resource to help with this is www.neverhitachild.org.

3.  For at least five minutes a day, put aside all distractions and really listen to what your child has to say. Don’t try to fix, judge or give advice. Just listen.

4.  Learn Nonviolent Communication (NVC) and practice it at home. One place to start is naming your own feelings (I’m feeling excited, happy, disappointed, tired, etc.) or guessing your child’s feelings (Are you feeling . . . ?).  The book Nonviolent Communication by Marshall Rosenberg can give you the basics. There are also many free resources at www.cnvc.org.  Practicing with others is really helpful. Pacifica offers at least a few workshops each year, and there are public workshops and study groups held regularly in different parts of Los Angeles. You can keep informed about these meetings by joining the LANVC loop on Yahoo!

5.  Give your child lots of opportunities to make choices at home. It can be as simple as what clothes to wear or what to have for dinner. Make sure that you are offering choices that are equally acceptable to both you and your child. Include your child, to the degree you are comfortable, in big family decisions like where to go on vacation or how to spend some unexpected extra money.

6.  Give your child age-appropriate responsibilities, especially over areas that affect them directly, such as preparing lunch for school, choosing a friend’s birthday gift or making sure that “special shirt” gets in the laundry in time for the party.

7.  Know what your child is watching on TV or which video games they are playing. Limit exposure to violent media, especially before the age of 11 or 12.  Even nonviolent TV programs, especially those geared to the 8-14 age group, model behavior that we might not enjoy seeing in our homes or our school. These shows are often filled with put-down humor, competition at all costs and dishonest behavior.  Watch a few episodes of your child’s favorite program with him or her, and use it as a springboard for discussing your values. Come up with alternative solutions to the problems presented in the shows.

I hope that you found this helpful. Remember, the Pacifica staff is always happy to schedule a time to talk with you about any questions you might have about implementing compassionate communication strategies at home.