National Safe Schools Framework for Parents

Every child has the right to feel safe all of the time. By developing a sense of self-respect and an understanding of protective behaviours, young people can become empowered, develop better communication skills, and build resilience, social skills and other life skills.

Teaching these concepts to your child helps to prevent abuse, reduce violence and promote positive rather than negative life experiences.

What is self-respect?

Self-respect is an attitude of acceptance of, and approval for, your own character and conduct.

Young people who have self-respect are more likely to:

• focus more on ‘Who I am’ rather than ‘What I have, what I look like, what I can do’
• have clear moral values and ethics, and show integrity by putting them into practice; they try not to let themselves down
• avoid mistreating others, because they value the rights of others to have dignity and be treated with respect
• act in self-protective ways; they keep themselves safe and act with dignity to achieve a positive identity and reputation
• believe that it is their right to be treated fairly and not to be mistreated by others; they take appropriate steps to protect this right
• consider themselves equal to other people while acknowledging differences; they don’t see themselves as either inferior or superior
• know their strengths and what they are good at and focus more on their strengths than on their limitations; they don’t focus on comparing themselves with others
• work hard and use willpower to try to achieve their goals and feel satisfied with their efforts even if they are unsuccessful because they know they did their best
• acknowledge, enjoy and feel satisfied with their efforts and achievements but avoid being arrogant about them
• accept themselves as imperfect and continue to be self-accepting in spite of difficulties, mistakes, and failures
• prefer to receive positive feedback; but they are not controlled by it
• weigh up what is said to them or about them and make up their own minds rather than assuming that if someone else says it then it must be true
• trust their own judgment and have faith in themselves; they consider other people’s views but are not automatically swayed by them.

(Helen McGrath and Toni Noble, 2013)

When you read the above list, which self-respecting behaviours do you feel your child demonstrates?