Parental Tips: 

1.       Model tolerance and compassion.  Children take their emotional cues from the significant adults in their lives.  Avoid making negative statements about any racial, ethnic, or religious group.

2.   Provide useful information.  Accurate information about the people, events, reactions, and feelings is empowering.  Use language that is developmentally appropriate for children.  Make sure that all information is factually true.  This is especially important when news reports have negative statements about ethnic groups.

3.   Discuss how it would feel to be blamed unfairly by association.  Ask children if they have ever gotten in trouble for something a sibling or friend did and how they felt.  Would they like it if their entire class were punished for the actions of one student and if they think this would be fair? 

4.    Emphasize positive, familiar images of diverse ethnic groups.  Identify people of diverse ethnicities that your children know and who have a positive place in their lives.  These could be neighbors, friends, school personnel, health care professionals, members of their faith community, or local merchants.  Discuss the many characteristics, values, and experiences the children have in common with these people.

5.    Undertake projects to help those in need with people from diverse backgrounds.  Helping others is part of the healing process.  Working with classmates or members of the community who come from different backgrounds not only enables children to feel that they are making a positive contribution, it also reinforces their sense of commonality with diverse people.

6.    Learn about the diverse communities and faiths represented in you area.  Knowledge debunks myths about other people and can humanize other cultures.  In school, have children share information about their family or cultural customs to reinforce the notion that all people have special beliefs and rituals.

7.    Read books with you children that address prejudice, tolerance, and hate.  There are many, many stories appropriate for varying age groups that can help children think about and define their feelings regarding these issues.  The school or local librarian can make recommendations.

Some of the material in this article was taken from NASP’s website at www.nasponline.org.

by Kelli Sheller, M.S.

Guidance Counselor,

ASPIRA Eugenio Maria De Hostos Charter School

The events that occurred on September 11^th remind us that violence is not something that only takes place in some distant and far away land.  With a harsh reality check, we now realize that no man, woman or child is immune from this type of violence, that it is no longer something that happens to “others.” The terrorist attacks have in one day made us all part of the experience of global violence.  After the initial shock, the natural reaction is to punish those responsible.  “Fighting back” is a natural reaction to tragedy in that we as human beings feel as if we are taking control of our lives again.  Maslow’s “Hierarchy of Needs Theory” places a person’s need to feel safe and free from threat above even the physical needs for food and shelter.  Combining these two ingredients, anger and the need for safety, if used in a positive mode, can be used as a catalyst for change. Using them negatively with vengeance in mind to lash out at the “other” (the perceived enemy), we will not only in the long run hurt our psyche’s but that of our children as well.

Children are like sponges; they absorb all that is around them, and because the ability to filter the information that comes in is still maturing, it becomes difficult for the child to determine what is positive vs. what is negative.  Given our diverse school culture, many students will become targets of blame and hostility.  To bully or harass anyone is unacceptable, and it will only escalate more conflict if it is based on a perception that the victims are the enemy.  We as parents and educators must be quick to respond and prevent this type of abusive behavior.  As adults, we have a unique opportunity to become role models for our children in reforming our own feelings of fear and anger into ones that exhibit compassion, tolerance and dignity for all no matter what their cultural or ethnic origins.  In doing so, we will present a mirror for our children to look at and explore their own feelings of hate and prejudice of the “other”.

As a leadership development/educational community based institution, ASPIRA of Florida offers the following tips (on the left column of this page) to parents, teachers, and the community to act as a guideline in promoting peace and tolerance and send the message that our strength lies in the belief of individual freedom, respect and dignity for all, and to not base our perceptions on the actions of a few.

COMING on APRIL 13, 2002

ASPIRA’s 21^ST ANNIVERSARY GALA

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