The Second Step Violence Prevention Program
Review by Hal Shigley, Ph.D., Licensed Psychologist
| Resource: |
Second Step-A Violence Prevention Curriculum, Committee for Children, 1-800-634-4449, http://www.cfchildren.org/violence.htm |
The Second Step Violence Prevention Curriculum was developed by The Committee for Children, a nonprofit agency from Seattle, Washington. Second Step is a program for schools and families to use to encourage children to get along well with others. The program teaches children to think about others’ feelings, to solve problems cooperatively, and to manage their anger in a positive way.
Second Step for preschoolers and kindergarteners is a curriculum kit designed to reduce impulsive and aggressive behavior in young children and increase their level of social competence. It does this by teaching skills in empathy, impulse control, and anger management. This curriculum is part of the Second Step series and is targeted for preschool through kindergarten (ages 4 through 6). Other steps in the series include curricula for grade 1 through 3, 4 through 5, and 6 through 8.
Empathy skills include teaching children to listen, acknowledge others’ feelings, and use “I feel” messages. Impulse control involves teaching children to use better problem solving skills. Teaching children to control anger involves teaching them how their bodies feel, learning steps to calm down, and using problem solving steps.
11-inch by 17-inch lesson cards form the core of curriculum kit. Each lesson consists of a photograph accompanied by a story with discussion questions. The body of the lessons contains the following sections:
warm-up
story and discussion
role playing or activity.
There are also follow-up sections on the lesson cards to guide the teacher to transfer the training to real-life situations and communicate with parents about home generalization. The lesson format is easy to use and is organized well. In each of the three areas of the curriculum (empathy, impulse control, and anger management), information is organized developmentally as to appropriate behavior at each developmental level, and reasonable expectations for learning at different developmental stages.
In addition to the school curriculum, there is a family guide to Second Step, teaching parenting strategies that are complementary to the classroom curriculum.
This curriculum kit is quite expensive ($259.00, $269.00, and $249.00 for the preschool/kindergarten, grades 1-3, and grades 4-5 kit, respectively) but would be a good investment for a developmental preschool as a way of preventing angry, aggressive, and violent behavior with preschoolers.