Parenting Education
What is "parenting education"?
Parent education - it is the most neglected and misunderstood phenomenon. And it's so unfortunate, because a lot of parents think that, "If I go to a parenting class it means I'm a bad parent." That isn't the case. Sometimes bad parents do go to parenting classes or they're court ordered. But that doesn't mean that a person who truly loves their children and wants a strong family shouldn't go and learn these modern methods. It is the most cost efficient and long-term effective method for having a stable, healthy family. In my career, as a parent educator for 25 years, I am appalled at how bad things have to get in a family before parents will go to a parenting class. Often they're ordered and the family is a disaster. So if we can bring, in parenting classes, these parents whose families are just horrible... If we can bring them back into moving from struggle to cooperation, think about parents, how they could avoid all of that misery if they were trained early, rather than after there's a huge problem in the family.
What are the benefits of parenting education?
The benefit of parenting education is learning how to be a fabulous person. The skills and techniques that we teach are not just about children and parents, they're about how to be with people. Many people are very successful in business and have people who just love them in business; the techniques that they use with adults are the same techniques that they ought to be using with their children. When they see that connection it kind of all clicks into place.
When is the best time to start parenting education?
The best time to start parenting education is with baby care, obviously. Their foundation of a lifetime is set in place when a child is a baby. The whole phenomenon of attachment, of how to treat babies, and the kinds of urgencies that come up with babies, clearly it makes a lot of sense to know what is good baby care. And nowadays there's an infinite amount of information available online, and wonderful books on children from birth until age three or five, and that foundation of a lifetime is put in place right there. So parents really need to be up-to-speed. We know that the learning curve of little children just goes straight up, and at age five it starts leveling off, and it still is going up, up, up. So, many parents have ignored this little baby, thinking, "oh, well, they're just a baby and don't know anything yet." Well, hello! They are learning unbelievably fast, and if you're missing these developmental stages and turning points as a parent it's too bad for the child.
Is it ever too late to start parenting education?
I've had people who are senior citizens take my parenting classes and they're parenting their grandchildren. We shouldn't think about the parent's role with such rigidity. A parent is anybody who is interacting with this child and is in a position to care for the child and teach the child. So, is it ever too late? These are relationship skills that a good many of us missed when we were growing up because a lot changed. Modern parents: just think of what has changed in the last twenty years, in the last thirty years. Your parents are unlikely to have known that. Now many grandparents are spending a lot of time with or actually physically parenting their children. They need to be trained in the modern methods.
Where can I find parenting education classes?
People can find parenting education classes - I get many referrals from the Internet. People just go online now, and they say "parent education" and they put in their city and stuff. Now there are more databases. Here in Los Angeles, there's a 211, and if you call 211, they know where all the services are all over the city - not just for parenting, but for elder care, medical issues, and so on and so forth. So there is, in many cities here, an organized research mechanism now - with computers, that is now possible. You can go to mental health centers. This is a little problem I have with therapy and mental health. What I do is education. It isn't therapy.
How is parenting education different from family therapy?
I wish that more therapists would realize that their clients need parent education as well as therapy, because what goes on with a therapist is not what I'm doing. Skill building, concept building, parent education. In and hour or fifty minutes, whatever a session is with a therapist, there might be some tips and some ideas that are in embarked that are educational to parents. But, I don't think it takes the place at all. A whole course, a ten week course in parent education is a big difference.
Is parenting education just for parents with "bad" kids?
Parenting education is not just for parents with bad kids. When we get our feet to the fire and we don't know what we're doing, with the kids behaving very badly and so are the parents, this is when most parents will seek some sort of help. If everything's peachy keen, people don't want to rock the boat as everything's good. One of the things I've noticed in parenting classes is that things have to get really bad before people say, ouch, what am I going to do here? That's what happened to me; I realized I didn't have the skills. I didn't understand why it wasn't easier, but it was horribly difficult. A lot of parents think that because children are little it's supposed to be easy. That is one of the biggest mistakes right there, it's not easy. It could be easy if parents really had the modern skills; it could get much easier than this confrontational, bad temper, back and forth, lack of cooperation, irritation that goes on in families as it's not necessary.
