With All Due Respect: The role of schools in promoting respect and caring for self and others says that pre-schools and schools can influence children's attitudes so that they are less likely to grow up to inflict violence on others. While it focuses on domestic abuse of women and children, it acknowledges that men can also be victims and explains that the desire for respect and to maintain dignity and self-esteem is a common motive for all types of violence. 'The less respect for self people are able to feel from within, the more they are dependent on respect from others, and the more likely to perceive humiliation, shame and degradation in words or behaviours that to others seem unexceptional,' says the report.
It calls on all pre-schools and schools to promote caring and support positive expectations and active participation. It says, 'From the very beginning, schools need to be consistent about the messages that they impart to children and young people. Even in pre-school settings, small children are sensitive to the messages that are implicit in the teachers' demeanour, in her ways of treating them as individuals, of encouraging collaboration, sharing, and resolving conflict.'
Practitioners' approach to children's play can also make a difference. 'The kinds of play promoted by practitioners at the pre-school stage can encourage girls to be more gently assertive and boys to be more gently collaborative throughout their school years. Girls can learn by experience that self-respect does have to do with the status they internally accord themselves, just as boys can learn that respect for others is not best demonstrated by asserting dominance and control.'
Strategies recommended by the report include circle time, where children can learn about group dynamics in a controlled environment; developing circles of friends, whereby vulnerable children can turn to designated others to share difficult feelings; and buddy systems, which offer support to children at times of transition. Research also shows that young people who exhibit difficult behaviour can be transformed by being invited to offer peer support themselves.
The report is available on www.scotland.gov.uk.
