NOTE TO PARENTSThe Peaceful Solution Character Education Program has promoted peace through education for more than twenty years. We focus on changing the hearts and minds. Whether in the home, a community or a nation, peace begins with individuals who have made a commitment to improve their interactions with others.At this point in history, there is no nation that can boast of having found a means to achieve peace, contentment, and wellbeing for its citizens. People are suffering severely from a lack of positive moral character. Yes, due to a lack of moral character, hatred, anger, conflict, and war exist. Consider, if a man had respect and compassion, would he mistreat his wife or children? If mankind had true forgiveness, would one group of people fight against another?The Peaceful Solution Character Education Program is designed to teach children moral excellence in a world that is increasingly becoming morally bankrupt. With mounting scientific evidence of the ability to teach a child while in the womb, it stands to reason that the best way to produce children who think morally is to begin character education at the earliest and most impressionable time possible. However, even if you have older children, it is never too late to begin teaching positive character development.Violent and aggressive behaviors are becoming evident in children as young as 4 and 5-years-old. Young people are also committing crimes such as theft, rape, and murder. Is there anything a parent can do to make a difference? The answer is, yes! Any parent who is motivated and wants to begin raising kinder, more respectful children can begin to teach a child even before he is born.As parents, we can no longer afford to have double standards. The time to change and make the necessary improvements to our lives is now, while we still can. Don’t let anyone tell you that you can’t teach an old dog new tricks! Everyone is capable of learning. Remember, our parents did the best that they knew at the time in raising us. No matter what we were taught, we can make positive changes in our lives. It is a fact that we constantly role model either positive or negative behaviors for them.In this manual, you will learn that the role of a parent, teacher, and educator can begin months before a baby’s birth. As parents, we are our children’s first and most influential teachers. Concepts such as respect, compassion, and peace can be introduced to young children and carry through the teen years and into adulthood. Teaching character education is most effective when it is done wholeheartedly. The concepts of peace through self-respect and respect for others, self-control, honesty and compassion will become a part of your child’s cognitive thinking, choices and actions only if they are adopted and modeled consistently by you, the parent. Let’s give our children the ability to make a better tomorrow. ~The Peaceful Solution Character Education ProgramBy modeling these behaviors now, it can become a habit in your life and ultimately the life of your child. Morals and values must be taught, practiced and lived everyday if they are to become a part of who you are, and who you want your child to become.Why Start With Character Education?Have you ever tried to shape a piece of clay that is dried? It is a frustrating, disappointing and futile effort. The ordinary person faced with this challenge would give up in frustration and throw the clay away, or wet it and try to make it usable. We can compare this analogy to our children. If we neglect to teach character education at the earliest possible age, it is much like leaving the clay out to dry. After our child’s character had formed by the age of three, we then begin to teach morals and values that could have been taught before they were born.Formal character education is a relatively new concept and is not taught officially until the first grade when the child is 6-years-old. By that age, a child’s character and personality have already formed. It is also around this age or earlier that the child begins to exhibit behavioral problems and is labeled as stubborn, rebellious, defiant, or incorrigible. Parents and teachers begin to complain that they just don’t know what to do with the child.At this stage, parents do one of two things; either they begin asking themselves where they went wrong or they simply reason that the child is a “bad” seed. In other words, they throw the clay away. This is not to say that they physically throw the child away, but rather they accept that they have a “problem child” who won’t behave no matter how hard they try. If there are other siblings, the parents will put their efforts into the other children in hopes of being more successful.In the meantime, the parents grow increasingly more frustrated and disappointed with the child’s behavior. They let the child continue in that pattern of negative behavior, not realizing character education holds the key to changing hearts and minds at any age. The child, unaware of why he behaves the way he does, begins to see himself as a “bad” person incapable of changing. In essence, we can teach a child to give up on himself. We can also teach him that he is unworthy of love and respect. Resentful and deprived of hope, these children often resort to violence, aggression, or self-destructive behavior. It is common knowledge that if a child cannot get positive feedback, he will seek it in a negative way.We can stop this vicious cycle by teaching our children character education, giving them the best possible start even before they are born, or at any other level of their development. With patience, persistence, determination, and love we can begin a process of learning that will bring, peace, joy and success to our children.