April is Child Abuse Prevention Month. A Pinwheels for Prevention garden has been planted in the NICU Family Garden. Pinwheels represent the joyful and carefree childhood everyone should experience. Please visit our pinwheel garden and help us promote the blue.
Child Abuse Prevention Month raises awareness recognizing the importance of strengthening communities and working together to prevent child abuse and neglect. Our brains are shaped by personal interactions. Building caring connections with children, families, and adults in our lives matters. When individuals thrive, our communities become safer and stronger.
How You Can Help:
- Making simple connections by listening to someone’s story, spending time with a child without electronics, or helping a parent in need can help tremendously.
- Use kind words to children, such as “way to go” ,“you are terrific”, “I am proud of you”, “you are trying hard” to encourage and build children up.
- Consider mentoring or fostering a child or teen in need of a stable home environment. Every conscientious step that we take to build up our children helps our community become more successful.
- Next time parenting pressures build up and you feel like lashing out –STOP! Take some slow, deep breaths, close your eyes and imagine what your child is about to hear. Maybe turn on some relaxing music or take a bath. Ask your spouse or friend to watch the kids so you can take a break. Or put your child in time-out. Give one time-out minute for each year of the child’s age.
- Always take children’s talk of being abused or neglected seriously. Call 911 or Child Protective Services immediately. (New Hanover DSS 798-3400).
Learn more about Pinwheels for Prevention and how you can help children here: https://preventchildabuse.org/resource/pinwheels-for-prevention/