Parent Education
Parenting education provides parents with structured lessons and opportunities to learn and improve their parenting skills. Parent education courses are available to parents and beyond, and grandparents and other caregivers can also benefit from them. Education regarding parenting, discipline, and child development is a means to provide parents with tools to discipline, understand, and bond with their children. Families First Center uses various teaching methods to accommodate different learning styles. Teaching methods include lectures, videos, activities, role-playing, class discussions, handouts, and other teaching methods based on the needs of the individual. Families First Center’s parenting education programs are strength-based, and family-centered, providing parents the best opportunity to grow and learn.
Nurturing Parenting
Infants, toddlers and preschoolers participate in hands on parenting activies with their parents and are involved in a curriculum that is age and developmentally appropriate. Parent educators teach nurturing parenting ideas and techniques.
Active Parenting: First Five Years
The First Five Years is based on the same foundation as the traditional Active Parenting curriculum but is a comprehensive video-based discussion program for parents, early childhood staff, and caregivers of children ages birth to 5. This program addresses the four main topics of you and your child, preventing problems, encouraging positive behavior, and preparing for school success, below is a brief overview of what these topics cover.
You and Your Child: Styles of parenting, ages and stages of development, building a bond with your child, and the method of choice.
Preventing Problems: Your child’s beautiful brain, using nonviolent discipline, and the “A-C-T” of parenting.
Encouraging Positive Behavior: The power of encouragement, choices and consequences, and caring for the caregiver.
Preparing for School Success: 6 smart things parents can do to help young children get ready for school.
Active Parenting
Active Parenting is a comprehensive parenting program helping parents of kids ages 5 to 12 raise responsible, cooperative children who can resist negative peer pressure and thrive. The Active Parenting model is largely based upon the theories of Alfred Adler and Rudolf Dreikurs known as “Adlerian psychology.” These theories include the importance of mutual respect between people, and an emphasis on cognitive-behavioral approaches to change, personal choice, and responsibility. Parenting skills that derive from these theories and that are taught in Active Parenting are described as an “authoritative approach” (as opposed to autocratic or permissive), and include such methods as natural and logical consequences, recognizing the goals of behavior, family meetings and problem-solving skills, the importance of encouragement, and much more.
Dr. Popkin has extended the Adlerian model, creating specific methods designed to support and prepare families through “every stage, every step” of their child’s development. These include such tools as the “think-feel-do” cycle, the positive and negative approaches to the the four goals of behavior, the FLAC (Feelings, Limits, Alternatives, Consequences) method of discipline, the importance of relationship building through “family enrichment activities and the self-esteem spiral.”
In addition, Active Parenting includes communication theory evolving from the work of Carl Rogers, Robert Carkuff, and others that are used to teach active listening, empathy for others, feeling recognition, and problem-solving. These skills are taught under the title “Active Communication” and are the perfect complement to the cognitive-behavioral model of Adlerian psychology.
Triple P
The Triple P – Positive Parenting Program is one of the most effective evidence-based parenting programs in the world, backed up by more than 35 years of ongoing research. Triple P gives parents simple and practical strategies to help parents build strong, healthy relationships, confidently manage their children’s behavior, and prevent problems from developing. Triple P is used in more 30 countries and has been shown to work across cultures, socio-economic groups and in many different kinds of family structures. The length of Triple P sessions will vary dependent on parent need.