Hawaii Violence Prevention

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Violence against children is an issue of public health worldwide. In the United States alone, 1,740 children died from abuse and neglect in 2008 and child protective services victimized 772,000 children, according for the Center for Disease Controls.

Types of Violent Behavior and its Consequences

Abuse of children under the age of 18 can taken on a number of forms and be perpetrated by any adults, such as, a caregiver, a coach, a teacher, or a member of the clergy. In addition to physical violence, abuse can be sexual, emotional or neglect. Emotional abuse is when an adult damages a child emotionally through rejection, name calling, threatening, in addition other verbal and non-verbal communication. Neglect is when a child’s needs aren’t met, such as, housing, food, health care and education.

Children who have experienced these types of behavior have a higher chance of health problems as adults. Chronic disease, depression, obesity, and alcoholism are just a few of the problems the may face.

Factors that Increase Violence Against Children

There are a number of factors that can increase the chance of maltreatment of children although their presence doesn’t always mean that abuse has occurred. Family environment is a good indicator of violence against children. Homes where there is a lot of stress due to drug or alcohol abuse, long-term health problems, financial issues, social isolation, or a history of violence are more likely to harbor the maltreatment of children. A violent community can also allow child abuse to flourish.
Under these conditions, children 4 years old and younger are at the greatest risk for violence leading to serious injury and even death.

Positive Parenting Skills

The role of public health agencies is to prevent violence against children. Parents need support and to be taught positive parenting skills which include communication skills, suitable discipline methods and how to attend to children’s needs both physical and emotional. Programs for the prevention of violence against children also offer parents social support.

Stranger danger is a cute play on words that we teach our children as young as they’re able to comprehend what we mean. When we talk about stranger danger, we’re teaching the children that talking to strangers or going off somewhere with a stranger is something that is not wise to do and that can bring them harm.

Many law enforcement agencies in local communities have classes that teach children the harm that can arise if they talk to strangers. You can find out about these classes by logging onto the Internet with your hp laptop and search for these classes.  Depending on the ages of the children, the teachings can be quite vivid and direct so as to stress the importance of why children need to watch out for strangers in their neighborhood or school.

Even though there are bad people who are all around our children in the parks, the grocery stores and even at our churches, we don’t want them to walk around and be terrified of every single person they encounter! This would make their little lives miserable and no fun, especially if they have to think too hard about interacting every time they leave the house.

For a completely well-rounded child who can decipher the difference in a “bad” stranger and a “good” stranger, here are some cues you can give them to look for in order to help them make good assessments:

- Adults don’t ask children for help. This is a classic tell-tell sign. That means don’t help them look for their lost dog, cat or anything where they say they need the child’s assistance.

- Never go anywhere with a stranger, not even a few steps. Even if they ask the child to come and look at something, they should respond with an emphatic “no!” and then inform their parents right away.

Once the children fully understand what true stranger danger is, they can have old-fashioned fun, but yet be educated on what to look out for and what to avoid.

Society is progressively becoming increasingly violent. A good portion is due to the amount of violence that people, especially children, are being exposed to in movies, television and video games.

Children in the U.S. watch an average of 3-4 hours of TV daily. The media has a powerful influence on shaping not only a child’s behavior, but also their value systems. So, it’s very important to pay attention to what your child watches and how it affects them. Moral issues in the media have been on a steady decline over the last century and society is experiencing the negative results. Just ask anyone over 60 what those differences are. Likely they would say it’s night and day compared to what they watched as children. Unfortunately, there’s so much violent programming and children are being exposed to it excessively at younger and younger ages.

Studies have been performed about the effects of TV violence on children and they’ve found that certain things happen when exposed to violence. Watching violence causes people to be more aggressive and become desensitized to the horror of violence. They begin to gradually accept violence as a way of solving problems. Also, they start to imitate the violence they see. While violence in the media isn’t the only cause of violent or aggressive behavior, it’s definitely a considerable factor. Many inmates note that the media they were exposed to influenced their thoughts and actions and led them down a path of crime.

People take children (even as young as 4) to watch PG-13 and R rated movies. It’s hard to understand why they feel it okay for young minds to witness what is in those shows. The rating system exists for a reason and even then you should be extremely cautious of what a child sees. If they’re watching violent movies as children, imagine what they will be watching as teens and adults; it will just intensify. Sites such as Kids In Mind give parents a look at what content movies have in them before they go and can be a great tool in protecting your child.

It’s back-to-school time, and that has parents thinking about a lot of things: buying clothes and supplies, fixing lunches, attending school events, and helping with homework. But there’s one thing that’s involved with children going back to school that most parents probably don’t think about: keeping our kids safe while they’re in school.

It’s no secret that violence has broken out over several schools in the United States over the last decade. Students are reacting to negative attention with more and more violent behavior, and the threats aren’t necessarily stopping. There are steps that parents, teachers, and administrators must take to prevent a tragedy from happening this school year.

The community, teachers, parents, administrators, and students must all come together to help prevent violence from occurring in our schools. One way to help prevent it is to increase security in schools. In a survey taken during the 1996-97 school year by the U.S. Department of Education’s National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), 84 percent of schools had a low security system in place, 11 percent had moderate security, only 2 percent had stringent security, and 3 percent had no security measures at all. One way we can help protect our children from violence at school is to increase these security systems throughout all the schools in the country.

Some ideas for increasing security in our schools include issuing name badges which must be worn by all students, faculty, and school employees at all times, and instituting violence prevention programs and zero tolerance policies in all schools. Parents can do their part by paying attention to warning signs their child might be showing that could indicate a violent situation could arise, including a sudden lack of interest in things, obsession with violent games, depression and mood swings, writing that shows despair and isolation, a lack of anger management skills, talking about death or bringing weapons to school, and showing violence towards animals. If your child is showing these signs, you’ll want to seek professional help for them. Your school’s guidance counselor is a good place to start when seeking help for your child.

The best time to each violence prevention to anyone is to stress the importance of it at an age as young as possible. We teach babies not to hit, spit or kick their siblings or playmates and continue that teaching throughout their formative years. Sometimes children learn these behavioral principles early on, and sometimes it takes other children a little longer to understand that they shouldn’t do those aggressive things.

By the time those little ones get to kindergarten, hopes are that they’ve learned social skills and there won’t be any problems with aggressive behavior. It sounds good, but it’s not always the case and behavioral skills just have to be re-taught. Teaching children how to avoid violent behavior as kindergartners should start early on and as quickly as possible.

The first step is helping them to understand social and interactive skills that teach them how to respect others by talking and sharing. Something as small even as sharing a pair of scissors or crayons can help little kids interact and learn how to practice patience while dealing with other people. Violence begins when there is no understanding or appreciation of another person’s opinion, resulting in a breakdown of communications. Teaching kindergartners to share and be polite avoids aggressive behavior and is a step towards reducing violence in their future.

To help kindergartners avoid violent behavior, adults should de-emphasize any instances where violent behavior is exhibited. This means ignoring them when they do things they shouldn’t. Aside from addressing issues that are overly-aggressive, small things like breaking in line, yelling out in class, shoving their classmate or snatching crayons from their neighbor are all things that the teacher should react calmly and quietly too. Giving the situation too much attention or dwelling on it too long reinforces to the child that they can get attention if they do “that thing.” The situation can often be diffused by addressing the problem quietly, away from the crowd (if possible) and following it up with what “is” expected from the child. Most often, by confronting the situation in this matter, they will exhibit the behavior that you want them to as long as they continue to receive a positive reaction to their behavior.