What is the best formula for better parenting? Helping our children grow up to be well-balanced, kind people with good decision making abilities isn’t easy. In fact, parenting is one of the most important tasks we have as adults, but many of us just go on instincts when raising our kids. Parenthood is definitely an adventure, but why try to keep reinventing the wheel when you can take a parenting class to help guide you on a successful path?
The first parenting group meetings were reported in the United States in 1815. Even during what seemingly was a simpler time, parents found that education was key in order to learn about child development. In turn, understanding new strategies and philosophies helped to improve caregiver effectiveness with kids of all ages.
The goal of parenting training programs today is to reduce parental stress and anxiety and improve parental self-confidence by learning news skills. A good parenting course will include topics on:
1) The Cost of Poor Parenting
2) How to Best Deal With Anger and Stress
3) Role Modeling For Our Children
4) Increasing Empathetic Listening
5) Improving Communication Skills
6) Improving Acceptance Skills
7) Setting Boundaries
8) Positive Discipline Techniques
9) Appropriate Rewards and Consequences
10) Approaches to Conflict Resolution
11) Praise
12) Parenting Styles
13) Common Parenting Mistakes to Avoid
There are many resources out there to help parents gain these skills. For busy parents who have trouble finding the time to attend a traditional classroom course, taking a 4-hour online parenting class is an excellent solution. High quality online classes follow a psycho-educational approach to better parenting and are developed by a licensed and practicing family therapist. The information in the course is the same that you would find in this type of bricks and mortar classroom program, but available instead on your web-based computer. This means that you can stay at home and take the class from your Ipad, laptop or PC at any time of the day or night that is most convenient for you. This might be while the kids are napping, are at school, when they are doing homework or late at night after everyone has gone to sleep.
Online classes enable you to learn the most current parenting skills information from the privacy of your own home. If you are shy, embarrassed or just don’t want everyone knowing that you are looking into this subject matter, online classes are perfect for you! Another benefit is that you and your husband can sit together to take the course at your own pace. There is no pre-determined schedule and there’s nothing to print out. Once you register, the class becomes available on your computer screen. You can log in and out as many times as you’d like and the program holds your last spot.
It doesn’t really matter what stage or age your kids are at to utilize this resource. Some clients like to take the class prior to having their first child, while others find a need when their kids are hitting adolescence. If you are feeling like the family is off-kilter and your children are not behaving the way you envisioned, taking an online parenting class could be your solution!