Parenting Programs
Parenting education programs can help you to become the most effective father or mother you can be. And effective parenting is the greatest gift you can give to your children!
The importance of educating parents has been recognized in the United States since at least 1815 when the first parent group meetings were reported. Those mainly educated parents about child development so that they would have realistic expectations about what children are capable of at different stages in their development.
Modern programs not only educate about child development. They teach very specific parenting skills to help you to productively deal with a wide range of challenging child behaviors. They teach parenting strategies and skills about how, when and when not to respond. They also teach specific skills to build a more enriched relationship with children.
Below is the trio of national model parenting skill-building programs:
01
The New Confident Parenting Program for parents of all cultural backgrounds
02
The Effective Black Parenting Program for parents of African American children
03
The Los Ninos Bien Educados Program for parents of Latino children
Each program teaches a positive approach to parenting and conveys important information about the ways children learn.
They all prepare you to use a variety of communication and disciplinary skills such as:
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Effective Praising
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Effective Verbal Confrontation
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Family Rule Guidelines
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The Thinking Parent's Approach
The two programs for specific cultures honor the histories of their people and recognize the special parenting challenges that racism and prejudice have created. Each program is taught as a series of classes with specific topics and skills.
Research on these classes show that they produce increases in parental confidence, reductions in parental stress, improvement in parenting skills, increases in the use of positive parenting practices and reductions or elimination in the use of spanking and hitting. They also serve to improve overall parent-child relationships, reduce child behavior problems, and increase child cooperation, self-esteem, social adjustment and academic achievement. The overall class serves to strengthen the entire family.
If you are a human service worker or parenting professional, you can become a parenting instructor in the program of your choice -- and conduct parenting classes in your community.
Parenting is probably the most important job you will ever have. And any job is easier when you have had the proper training.