What your children remember and learn from is what you show and teach them you are a model as to how an adult behaves. So make sure that you are modelling what you want them to grow up to be as children copy their parents behaviour.  Teach them about good communication skills and how to deal with problems and disagreements. Children are always watching what their parents are doing and saying and how they solve problems. Do you get angry with your partner or others or can you calmly talk about a situation to find a solution where everyone wins. Children who live in a family with domestic violence think that this behaviour is normal. I know that because I did I thought that every family acted that way and that it happened in every family, so why go for help if everyone did it and it was happening in every family. I thought that it was normal in how you solve problems in families. Often children from families where there was domestic violence will go on to use domestic violence in their new family as an adult unless they go for help get educated and find new ways of commuicating better. They need to learn that good families don’t use domestic violence to solve problems. They have better comunications skills and listen to each other and value what the other person has to say or feels.

If you spend quality time with your children every week or daily. They will know that they are important and have high value and self esteem. Also that you care about them and their well being matters to you and the family. I know that personally because the message that I kept receiving was that I did not matter to keep quite and don’t cause a fight in the family keep the peace.  No one ever told me that I needed to value me and look after my wellbeing that this was important until I was an adult and at the crisis centre. This was a totally new experience for me that it is important to take care of your wellbeing and how you are doing emotionally. So children need to know that how they are doing on a personal level matters and is important to the family. You need to have a good connection to them so that they can come to you if they need help in the future. If other things in your life are more important to you your children will know and they will grow up feeling unimportant. Things like answering your phone, watching TV, going with your friends and drinking, going to the pub. Yes you need time to do these things too but what is your priority in your life is it your children or phone? Also when you are spending time with your children have the phone and tv, radio off and look at them and be there connecting in a meaningful way. Think about this and the message that you are sending to your children because it all matters and has an effect on how they function as an adult. If we want our children to grow up with high value, good morals and high self esteem we need to treat them in that way. Children know when they are treated as unimportant and it will effect them for life. Teach them that it is safe to go to you and talk to you about anything that is a problem in their life. Doing this builds good relationships with your children it sets them up for life with a good values and a secure base to operate from. Spending time with your children really connecting makes them feel valued and that their life and what is happening to them matters. Find activies that they love to do and spend time with them. You can use this time when you are together to really communicate to your children and find out what they love and what matters in their life . Children need to learn that how they are doing in very important and matters. Doing this is especially important when they have been around domestic violence or abuse. Children who feel loved grow up to be mentally healthy and have high well being and values in their life as adults. Their life is much better and healthier it really does matter what you teach your children because it effects the rest of their life. If you do this they will make healthy choices for the rest of their life.

Here is another though do you have a family practice that you could talk to them about that could be pasts on to them to use in the next generation. Some of the practices could be about kindness, helping others, voluntering, playing sport, leave things better than you found them, being kind to animals, looking after nature.Doing this is a great gift to leave the next generation so that it is left better than we found it.

Moral : Teach your children that they matter in the world and have high value to themselves and others!