|
What Families Can Do to Prevent Intimate Partner Violence
- Act as role models; settle conflicts nonviolently. Model healthy, respectful relationships.
- Maintain two-way communication with children; talk with them about violence they may have witnessed, experienced, or perpetrated.
- Do not keep firearms or keep them safely stored and locked up with ammunition stored separately.
- Participate in community or school violence prevention groups.
- Monitor/supervise your children’s use of the internet, television, reading material, movies, music, and video games. Talk to your children about inappropriate portrayals of relationships.
- Understand the root causes and risk factors for violence, as well as factors for resiliency.
- Seek out support groups to improve relationship and parenting skills, if needed.
- Establish and enforce household rules and reward positive behavior. Teach your children that disrespectful behavior is never acceptable.
- Treat boys and girls equitably. Teach your children that all people are equally valuable and deserve to be treated with respect and dignity.
- Supervise the activities of your children; know their schedule and their friends. Talk to your children about the health of their relationships and ways they can maintain positive relationships.
- Understand the warning signs of relationship abuse and where to get help.
- Practice zero tolerance for bullying and violence in the family and take proactive steps to eliminate bullying and relationship violence in schools. Insist that schools provide prevention education for all students and support for victims of violence.
- Provide foster homes and safe havens for abused children.
- Encourage community service.
Excerpted from the Commission for the Prevention of Youth Violence. Youth and Violence: Medicine, Nursing and Public Health: Connecting the Dots to Prevent Violence. Chicago, IL : American Medical Association; 200:28.
|
