Things to do at Home

In Years 1 to 4, encourage your children to take time when making a decision.

• Stop, Think and Remember before deciding what to do.
• What have I been told? What happened last time I was faced with this situation?
• Who can I ask for help? It’s OK to pause and take time to think.

By Year 5, children should be able to begin a more formal structure of decision making, using a wider range of their knowledge and experiences.

• Say It: describe the situation, who’s involved, what’s happening, where and when is it taking place?
• Know your options: what could you do? What are your choices, and what are the consequences and risks of each?
• In response: make a decision and agree on a course of action.
• Look back and Learn: how did the decision work out? We all make mistakes, but the key is remembering them, learning from them, and not repeating them.

Keeping calm and happy is key to making good decisions. Promote positive ways of dealing with stress, anger or anxiety: talking to someone about it, breathing exercises, reading, exercise, walking the dog, sleep and rest.

Discourage negative ways, such as shouting, hitting things, or spending long periods online. As children get older, talk about how drugs and alcohol are not the best way to deal with stress.

Sometimes making the right decision requires the need to communicate effectively: letting others know how you feel and what you think, preparing what to say, maintaining good posture and eye contact, speaking at a good volume, and being firm but polite.

Listening, not interrupting, and encouraging the other person is also important, along with positive body language. This can be practised, encouraged and modelled when your children speak to you and you speak to them.

As children get older, they need to develop a range of strategies enabling them to say no, get out of tricky situations, or just avoid them.

• Stick together. Hang around with your mates in small groups rather than individually, less likely to be targeted this way, and friends can help and encourage if needed.
• Avoid unsafe places and people who look dubious, have been in trouble before, or just make you feel uncomfortable. Talk about your gut feeling and how it is often right.
• Change the subject when asked to do something that makes you feel uncomfortable, and talk about something else instead.
• Effective refusal. Tell the person exactly why you won’t be doing what they ask, and the risks and consequences you are considering. The more you include, the more convincing you become. This may not be appropriate when faced with someone bigger or older than you, so another strategy may work better.
• Step away. Walk or run away when you realise you don’t want to be there, ideally somewhere with a lot of people and CCTV, such as a supermarket.
• Make up an excuse and leave. You’re late home for tea. Pretend to take a phone call, walk off and keep walking.

• Question Jar. Keep a jar where your child can post written questions about things they’ve noticed or wondered about. Answer a couple each week, calmly and factually, at a time that suits you rather than in front of others.
• Role play scenarios. Act out situations like receiving a message from a stranger, seeing something upsetting online, or being asked to share personal information. Practise what to say and do together.
• Create a “Family Internet Agreement”. Sit down together and write rules you both agree on, screen time limits, which sites are okay, what to do if something feels wrong. Children follow rules better when they help make them.
• The “Would You Share This?” game. Go through examples of information (full name, school name, address, phone number, photos, favourite colour) and sort them into “safe to share” versus “keep private” piles.
• Spot the scam. Show age appropriate examples of phishing emails or fake pop ups and ask “What looks fishy here?” Teach them to look for urgency, spelling errors, and too good to be true offers.
• Password creation workshop. Teach them to make strong, memorable passwords using a silly sentence or a mix of words.

• Hot seat. One person sits in the “hot seat” and others try to pressure them into a bad decision. Practise saying no confidently.
• Freeze frame. Act out a scenario, freeze it, and discuss better choices.
• The phone call. Practise calling a parent for help in a difficult situation.
• “What would you do?” scenarios. Present situations like “A friend offers you a vape at a party” and discuss responses together.
• Media analysis. Watch TV shows or films together and pause to discuss how smoking and vaping are portrayed versus reality.

• “Safe or unsafe?” sorting game. Write substances on cards (vitamins, prescription meds, street drugs, household chemicals) and sort them into categories together.
• Medicine cabinet audit. Go through your real medicine cabinet together, discussing what each item is for and safe storage.
• Comic strip stories. Draw a character navigating peer pressure or finding unknown pills.
• Trusted adults web. Map out together who your child can go to if they find drugs or feel pressured.
• Label reading exercise. Look at real medicine labels and learn about dosage, warnings and expiry dates.

• “What would you do?” scenarios. Present situations like “A friend offers you a drink at a party” and discuss responses together.
• Media analysis. Watch TV shows or films together and pause to discuss how alcohol is portrayed versus reality.
• Poster or comic strip making. Have children illustrate the effects of alcohol or create “refusal skill” comics.
• Journaling. Older children write about pressures they’ve heard about and how they’d handle them.
• Role play. Practise saying “no” in fun, low pressure scenarios, using puppets for younger children or acting for older ones.

• Home walk through. Identify products containing solvents together: paint, glue, cleaning sprays, nail polish remover, petrol. Read labels together and discuss warning symbols.
• Sorting game. Sort household products into “safe alone”, “safe with adult”, and “never touch” categories, and discuss why certain products are stored up high or in locked cupboards.
• Warning label design. Create your own warning labels or safety stickers for household products.
• Danger zone poster. Draw and label rooms in your home showing where hazardous products live.

• “One Same, One Different”. At dinner or bedtime, take turns finding one thing you and your child share and one thing that’s different. A simple way to show that everyone has both, and neither makes you better or worse.
• Storytime pause and chat. With any picture book featuring a character different from your child, pause and ask “How do you think they felt?” or “What would you have done?”
• Family tree chat. Look at photos of your own family, or a book showing different family types, and talk about how families come in different shapes but all share love and care.
• “Guess the Story, Not the Person”. Using a book or TV character, talk about what you can’t tell just by looking at someone. A good lead in to talking about assumptions and stereotypes.
• News or sport chat. Use something in the news, such as a sportswoman playing while pregnant or a Paralympian, as a natural way to talk about a protected characteristic.

• “Anyone Can…” game. Take turns naming a job or activity and both say “anyone can do that if they want to”. A playful way to loosen early gender role assumptions.
• Advert detective. Watch a couple of adverts or cartoon clips together and spot how boys and girls are shown differently. Ask “Do you think that’s realistic? Fair?”
• Everyday superheroes. Name women in your family, in history, or in the news who’ve done something impressive, and talk about what made it hard or easy for them.
• Online influencer discussion. If your child is old enough, watch a short, appropriate clip together and talk about what messages it sends about women, respect or relationships.
• Everyday modelling. The most effective activity at any age is simply what your child observes at home, how disagreements are handled, who does which chores, whose opinions get airtime.

• Watch age appropriate documentaries or news stories together and discuss them.
• Make posters or artwork with anti knife crime messages.