Press Release 

For Immediate Release
Contact: Dottie DeHart
(828) 459-9637 or DSDeHart@aol.com

San Francisco, CA (July 2001) — Riots. Hate crimes. Random shootings. Bombings. Senseless murders. The events we see on the evening news horrify us all. And if we’re tempted to think that the darker human emotions that cause such atrocities belong only to “other people,” all we have to do is take a look at our kids. There’s been a troubling increase in bullying, name-calling, and prejudicial slurs among schoolchildren. No wonder parents are at loose ends. We want to teach our children the right way to live . but there’s so much conflicting advice out there that we don’t know where to turn.
Finally, a little good news! Dr. Michele Borba, author of the new book Building Moral Intelligence: The Seven Essential Virtues that Teach Kids to Do the Right Thing (Jossey-Bass, July 2001, ISBN: 0-7879-5357-1, 800-956-7739) offers some proven and documented solutions to a problem that is growing by leaps and bounds.
"The single greatest trend I've seen as a consultant to hundreds of schools, including Columbine, over the past ten years is the marked increase in anxiety and anger in our children,” Borba says. “Clearly, the steady onslaught of stress and violent images is taking a major toll on our children's emotional and moral well-being. That’s why I wrote this book—and it’s why I’m so delighted about the study that proved its techniques resulted in a significant decrease in school-wide verbal and physical aggression.”



The year-long study, spearheaded by Dr. Borba, involved more than 1000 elementary school children at three “at risk” schools. Teachers implemented school-wide monthly behavioral themes (respect, self-control, kindness, problem solving) and taught students the techniques from Borba’s book that address these themes. More than 50,000 pieces of data were collected before and after the program was implemented—and statistical consultants found a 39% reduction in verbal and physical aggression in students. As a bonus, some 89% of the staff members reported that students were more caring, respectful and better able to solve problems than before the program.
What can parents and teachers do? For starters, they can read the book that inspired this groundbreaking study. The author offers dozens of practical tips and strategies for teaching kids to boost strong moral habits, control aggression, stand up to peers—in other words, how to handle their emotions appropriately when faced with inevitable frustrations. Best of all, caregivers will know that they are using strategies that have been proven to help eliminate violent behavior in kids.
In Building Moral Intelligence, Borba gives parents and educators the following five strategies to teach children self-control so they can calm down and learn to handle their anger:

1. Model coolness when facing problems. Showing you can keep your cool, even in crisis, is an important way to help your children learn self-control. You send a clear message: "It may look like a crisis, but by staying cool, I'll be in a better position to solve the problem." Example is always the best teacher: "I need to take a deep breath and stay cool before I call the bank. I can't understand how my account is so overdrawn."

2. Develop a feeling vocabulary. Many kids display aggression because they simply don’t know how to express their frustrations any other way. They need an emotion vocabulary to express how they feel, and you can help your child develop one by creating a "feeling word" poster together. Here are a few: angry, upset, mad, frustrated, agitated, furious, apprehensive, tense, nervous, anxious, irritated, furious, ticked off, irate, incensed. Write them on a chart, hang it up, and when your child is angry, use the words so that he can apply them to real life: “Looks like you’re really angry. Want to talk about it?” Then keep adding emotion words to the list whenever new ones come up during those great “teachable moments” throughout the day.

3. Identify anger warning signs. Explain to your child that we all have our own little signs that warn us we’re getting angry, and that we should listen to them because they can help us stay out of trouble. Next, help your child recognize what specific warning signs she may have that tell her she’s starting to get upset. For example, “I talk louder. My cheeks get flushed. I clench my fists. My heart pounds. My mouth gets dry. I breathe faster.” Once she is aware of her signs, start pointing them out to her whenever she first starts to get frustrated: “Looks like you’re starting to get out of control.” “Your hands are in a fist now. Do you feel yourself starting to get angry?” The more we help kids recognize those early warning signs when their anger is first triggered—usually when they first show signs of tension and stress—the better able they will be to calm themselves down and learn to regulate their own behavior.

4. Use self-talk to stay in control. Borba suggests that another way to help kids stay in control is to teach them to say affirmations — simple, positive messages — to themselves in stressful situations. Here are a few that kids can learn: “Stop and calm down,” “Stay in control,” “Take a deep breath,” and “I can handle this.” Suggest a few phrases to your child, then have him choose the one he feels most comfortable saying; help him rehearse it a few times each day. You might post the words he chooses throughout the house as a reminder. The more your child practices the affirmation, the greater the likelihood he will use it during a difficult situation in which she needs to stay cool and in control.

5. Teach abdominal breath control. Learning to breathe the right way—especially in stressful situations—is one of the most effective ways to stay in control, and so it’s an important technique to teach kids. Experts advise you to teach the relaxation method with your child sitting in a comfortable position, her back straight and pressed into a chair for support. Then show your child how to inhale slowly to a count of five (“one Mississippi, two Mississippi," and so on), pause for two counts, then slowly breathe out the same way, again counting to five. Repeating the sequence creates maximum relaxation. The trick is to help your child learn to breathe very slowly and deeply and then practice it over and over in a calm, relaxed setting so that she can remember to use the technique during a stressful time.

Teaching kids to use self-control is just one of the many attributes of Dr. Borba's new book, Building Moral Intelligence: The Seven Essential Virtues that Teach Kids to Do the Right Thing. The book covers this and literally hundreds of other ideas, stories, techniques, tips, and parenting strategies to help parents build moral strength in their children. Borba's practical, step-by-step advice will guide parents and teachers along their most important role: raising good moral human beings.