Parent education and Parenting are the concepts that most people do not take as seriously. Certainly most governments and authorities do not like to spend money or resources on this important task due to budget cuts or simply lack of knowledge.
In this world of technology, we attend courses and programs for every single job we want to take, however when it comes to the “hardest job on earth” ( as used phrase by Oprah Winfrey), we use excuses to attend those classes.
Parent education is a discourse that should be obligatory, should be considered almost as a per-requisite to have a child, and should be handled with care.
Indeed parent education should not end in the hospitals when new parents learn how to breastfeed or how to change the diapers.
Parent education should be ongoing, as much as the desire foe becoming a parent is alive.
Parent education has to be done by professionals and educators in the filed of mental health. Why? because the focus on building relationship between parents and children is a clinical work. Therapists and counsellors are the one who are offering these professional parent seminars and they should be considered more for educational program as such.
When you help parents to understand their children, then you are supporting a more secure and confident next generation.
Parent’s education should be a must specifically when it comes to immigrant communities.
Parents in those communities have a huge load to carry; the luggage of adjustments concerns and settlements issues.
In our Iranian community, we seldom put any value on this education, we do as we were taught to do or as we have been raised like. Now, we have to open up this discussion how is that our tools for parenting are not working anymore. As a therapist, i see more parents admitting that they have run out of tools and do not know what to do.
Hope we can raise more awareness around this topic. A healthy parenting helps healthy communities.
Poran Poregbal, MA, RSW, RCC
WWW.middlepeace.com
