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Strollerderby
They Say: Parenting Classes Work
We’ve all heard it :”You need a license to drive a car, but not to raise a kid –what’s up with that?” or some variation thereof.
Well, it’s not exactly parenting licensing, but a policy paper recently issued by the Brookings Institution looks at the success of of three similar parenting programs in helping to reduce child maltreatment, and found that all of them were effective in reducing families’ contacts with protective services, complaints from teachers, and child injuries.
In most cases, the programs save money because families who undergo the programs start dealing with their families better, and so their contact with protective services is reduced or eliminated. In many cases the programs are very inexpensive to implement — less than $13 per child for training of professionals and communication with parents, for one program.
I think that this would be a good idea, not just for parents who’ve already been maltreating their kids but for everybody. Who among us doesn’t feel that we could use a little help in dealing with parenting challenges every now and again? I’ve read books, visit Ask Moxie on a daily basis, and talk with friends who are more experienced at this parenting game to get their perspective. And you know what? We all have our challenges. Even my friends who are actually professionals at dealing with young children find they sometimes struggle with the behavior of their own. One of the points made by this Brookings report is that even short of actual abuse, plain-vanilla bad parenting can have a host of bad results. A short parenting course could probably help all of us, no?
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STRONG Fathers commented on Nov 19 09 at 10:22 amThe sad reality is that many of the programs and services targeting at risk, but not in-crisis families are getting are seeing their funding dry up. Families that don’t see themselves as struggling may see some benefit in these types of classes, don’t usually see that benefit out weighing the hassle of actually doing the class. As a provider of father focused parenting classes, we struggle with those realities every day.
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