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27 OCTOBER 2010
NO 1646
Work with parents
In our culture, parenthood is defined
neither as a professional nor as a volunteer activity; there is no set
curriculum, no formal training, no
certificate of competence issued before an individual enters into the
parenting role. Yet there are, in fact, certain fundamental tasks to be
learned, and the demands and expectations are many.
Due to the paucity of ritual in modern
heterogeneous society, the processes of family nuclearization and erosion of
community, and the
increased entry of mothers into the labor force, many parents no longer
benefit from traditional family structures for learning childrearing
guidelines and techniques (see Harman and Brim, 1980, p.14).
Concomitantly, agents outside of the family — peers, mass media, and formal
institutions — play an increasingly significant part in the process of
socialization. Parents are not always well-equipped to be aware of and able
to balance or at times counteract, the effects of these extrafamilial
influences. It is, therefore, not surprising that some parents are unable to
carry out their parenting roles in an adequate fashion.
Understandably, many of the parents of young
people in residential placement have such difficulties, and parent
participation in the residential setting should, therefore, give close
attention to parent education and socialization. To achieve an optimal
acquisition of improved child management skills, a sense of adequacy and
competence, and an increased commitment and willingness to resume full-
time childrearing responsibilities, these parents must receive both didactic
and experiential structured learning opportunities. Didactic
learning opportunities are defined as systematic instruction, provided by
the agency, and intended to impart to the parents specific preselected
information through the medium of parent education/support groups.
Experiential learning opportunities are defined as
activities designed and provided by the agency in which parents are invited,
encouraged, and assisted to participate actively together with their
youngsters in placement (e.g., in birthday parties, field trips, exercise
classes, holiday celebrations, meal preparations, conferences with
houseparents and school personnel, opportunities to observe how houseparents
or child care workers manage children).
Towle (1954, p.171) stated that didactic learning (passing on information) is more effective if accompanied by experiential opportunities (a chance to experience the change in feeling and attitude by becoming involved in planned doing). In agreement with this position, Knox (1978, p.431) argued persuasively that a more positive approach to learning can result when the learner better understands connections between organized knowledge and personal experience.
Knowles (1972, p.35) has written extensively on
the differences in assumptions about the learning and teaching of children
(pedagogy)
and the art and science of helping adults to learn (androgogy). He views the
transmittal techniques of traditional teaching wherein the teacher or
socializing agent is a leader and the learners are dependent recipients of
lectures, audiovisual presentations, and assigned reading, as typical of the
subject-centered pedogogic approach. Androgogy is described as
problem-centered learning and is tied to experience, wherein the teacher is
a facilitator who helps to provide and analyze the experience and uses other
action-learning techniques.
PAUL CARLO
Carlo, P. (1988) Implementing a parent involvement/parent
eduction program in a children’s residential treatment centre. Child &
Yoiuth Care Quarterly, 17, 3. Fall 1988, pp.195-196.
REFERENCES
Harman, D. and Brim, O.G. Jr. (1980). Learing to parents – principles, programs and methods. Beverly Hills. Sage Publications.
Towle, C. (1954). The learner in education for the professions. Chicago. The University of Chicago Press.
