Fostering Positive Choices • Making Decisions
Understanding your child • Helping your child learn
A child's view of the world

Utica Community Schools is dedicated to helping students grow and succeed personally as well as academically. One way is to emphasize a series of lifetime skills that help kindergartners through high schoolers build strong character and healthy self–esteem.

Woven into students' daily classroom and playground activities, UCS emphasizes skills that encourage students to:

• show respect by treating others the way they want to be treated;
  
  
• show responsibility by being accountable for what they say and do;
  
  
• show integrity by being truthful and trustworthy;
  
  
• do their personal best by putting forth their best effort; and
  
  
• demonstrate positive communication by being considerate with their words and actions.

Fostering Positive Choices (top of page)
While the kindness and encouragement of teachers, principals and other caring adults help children learn and grow, nothing replaces a parent's nurturing in transforming a child into a sensible, sensitive and capable adult.

You can help your child make positive lifestyle choices by:

• understanding children's developmental stages so you can put his or her behaviors into the proper perspective.
  
  
• offering encouragement that builds his or her confidence and self–esteem. Provide opportunities for your child to make age–appropriate decisions and praise accomplishments.
  
  
• listening – with undivided attention – to not only what your child says, but what he or she is feeling.
  
  
• helping your child recognize and accept such feelings as happiness, anger or frustration and demonstrating how to easily and constructively talk about them.
  
  
• teaching your child good communication skills – honesty, respect, clear language, good timing, trust and consistency.
  
  
• setting clear expectations and consequences and consistently following through with them. Help your child learn responsibility by experiencing the results of his or her own decisions.

Making Decisions (top of page)
Teaching your child to make decisions, solve problems and cope with the outcomes is one of the most important contributions you will ever make to his or her success. Work with your child to develop such decision–making skills as:

• identifying feelings that are relative to the situation;
  
  
• brainstorming possible options for solving the problem;
  
  
• weighing the positive and negative outcomes of each choice; and
  
  
• choosing the solution that promises the best outcome.

Let your child know that decisions do not always work out as planned by talking about your decision–making experiences, discussing both the positive and negative outcomes and sharing the lessons you learned.

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Understanding your child • Helping your child learn
A child's view of the world