Care ● Compassion ● Community
Helping parents to understand by PACE
• PACE is at the core of therapeutic parenting but as an attitude not a strategy. Playfulness,
Acceptance, Curiosity and Empathy
• This parenting attitude facilitates a connection between child and parent which is not
possible with a narrower focus on managing the behaviour.
• This connection builds the trust and security in relationship that has previously been
missing from the child's experience of being parented.
• With this connection the child will cope better with the normal boundaries and discipline
that parents need to provide for their children.
• Therefore, PACE is not a strategy to get children to talk; to open up or to behave differently.
It is a way of being to help children feel more secure by helping the parents to respond
differently.
• When PACE is used as a strategy it is likely that
acceptance is low; the PACE attitude is lost