Parenting and Family Education

Archive for October, 2009

In modern Britain when parents are expecting a baby it is quite natural and almost expected that parents will attend anti-natal courses to prepare them for the birth and maybe the first 6 months of their child’s life. Somehow however there is still a feeling in modern society that once you are through this initial stage of your child’s life the rest come naturally and that parenting is an instinctive skill that we should all have.

If any help was needed then new parents would typically have looked to their parents and wider family for parenting tips and parenting advice. However in more modern fast moving societies like Britain today family units are much more mobile and fragmented and thus often this ‘traditional’ support is no longer available. This has left a vacuum for parents who often are faced with challenges in bringing up their children that they do not know how to deal with no family support to help them.

Faced with this situation many parents would just hope they can muddle through – others would read books or parenting guides for parenting tips which may or may not have helped them resolve the issue.  But as many parents will have found, as their children grow the issues change. Problems with bedtimes or mealtimes get resolved then homework becomes an issue and often the teenage years loom large in the background like a black cloud on the horizon moving ever closer.

In the last decade or so parents have become more aware of ‘Positive Parenting’. Positive Parenting is a broad term that covers a range of life skills. These parenting skills can be learnt in the same way that one might learn the skills associated with any job and when learnt can allow parents to be much more effective in their interactions with their children so that their relationship with them and their whole experience of the years their children are growing up can be enriched.

The Parent Practice is an organisation based in SW London that has been teaching positive parenting skills to parents for the last 10 years.   The Parent Practice produces parenting  guides in the form of short publications, books and CDs but our main work is done face-to-face via parenting courses.

There are goods and bad about every thing, same is true for single parenting. However if you sum up the two for single parenting the bads will far outnumber the goods. Therefore all single parents work with a disadvantage.

All parenting issues are centered on children. This also holds true for single parents. All single parents except few have to work and also look after the children without the help from the other partner. The question is whether a single parent has time and ability to earn and look after the children alone. If the child goes to school he is being looked after there while the parent is at work but for preschool children some sort of arrangement is to be made so that they are looked after at home during their parent’s working hours. Preschool is difficult to afford and there may be more than one kid. At this time the grandparents may step in to play their role. This is very important as according to the US Census conducted in 2000, 5.6 million kids reside with their grand parents. Many preschool children are not fortunate enough to have grandparents or any other relative to look after them when their parent is at work. In this case either the parent should work at home or arrange something for the children. This is the major difficulty faced by single parents.

Second difficulty faced by single parents is time management. Raising kids is a full time job and so is your work. Managing the two in the same 24 hrs puts extra stress on the parent. So every day you start off as a machine. You get up early and prepare the breakfast. Then you get yourself and your child ready for the day. You leave for work and drop your child at school early at 7 am. Then you get past all the traffic to reach your office. After a tiring day’s work you leave your office at 5 pm and pick your child on the way home. Without a moment to relax you start to prepare dinner and help your child with the homework. You are lucky if you don’t have to bring your work home. As soon as you are finished with homework and dinner it is bedtime and you put your kid in bed after a bath and a bedtime story. This is what happens each weekday. More so, special arrangements are required for the kids during holidays. Not that it is physically and emotionally taxing it also affects your progress in your profession. This is another difficulty faced by single parents.

If you are a lone parent or planning to be one it is important for you to realize that proper planning is the key to your success and so is a support network. The biggest issue to solve is the time distribution between yourself, work and children so that you can spend few meaningful moments with your children. It is also a drawback that all single parents have to do all the work alone but patience, a little support and good planning can help you a lot.

We are all born with some parenting skill; qualities such as patience, ability to love, and humour, but other skills need to be learned. Parents do not know how to react to situations until they are faced with them and are on a constant learning curve.

The first thing to remember is to never be afraid to ask for advice. Whatever the situation you are trying to deal with, someone else has been through it before you. Your family and your friends are a great source of advice and information, as they may have developed a particular parenting skill that you haven’t needed to find yet.

Books and the internet are also a great source of information. A quick look at online booksellers or internet sites shows a massive amount of advice available. It is a good idea to double check parenting skill advice you find on the internet though as it obviously isn’t checked or regulated.

Thirdly, your doctor, health visitor, midwife and nurses are available to help you. If you are seriously worried about a health or behavioural problem with your child they are the best people to ask. There are lots of facilities available to help, such as child psychologists, educational psychologists, and in some cases of behavioural problems medications can even be prescribed to help control the symptoms. Do not be worried about wasting the health professionals’ time – you aren’t wasting their time at all, and they are happy to help. Parenting skill isn’t something you have to learn on your own.

Another way to get help with your parenting skill is to go to classes. Many classes and programs are available, either dealing with specific issues or general skills. Your local surgery or social services should be able to provide you with details of these. If you are having serious problems then social services will also be able to give you help. Asking social services doesn’t mean they are going to take your children from you so please don’t be afraid of asking them for help when you need it.

Whatever issues you have with parenting skill, whether you simply need reassurance, or whether you need serious help, you are not on your own. Millions have had similar problems before you and millions will have the same issues in the future. By using the resources you have available to you, you will give your children the benefit of the best information and parenting skill possible.