Common Sense Parenting

In May, the Metropolitan Parent Center had a special series of workshops that concerned parenting skills. The series was called Common Sense Parenting provided by the organization known as Boys Town NY. Common Sense Parenting is a practical, skill-based parenting program that focuses on strategies and easy-to-learn techniques that address issues of communication, discipline, decision making, relationships, and self-control and school success. The workshops were very interactive and allowed parents to learn, practice and demonstrate new parenting skills. Workshops included instruction by a professional parent trainer, watching and discussing video scenarios of parent and child communication and behaviors. Parents also had the opportunity to practice techniques and strategies by engaging in role playing to help parents understand and how to use the tools that were being offered. There were two sessions offered, one was held on Thursday evenings for English speaking parents and the other session was conducted on Friday mornings for Spanish-speaking parents.

The trainer, Ms. Gonzalez was very competent and engaging, she displayed a good sense of humor and conveyed the workshop content fluently in both languages.  In addition, materials (including a book and a workbook on parenting and food) were provided free of charge to the parents. The program was considered highly successful as indicated by parent feedback and program evaluations. Some parents were practicing some of the techniques they learned and stated that they were seeing positive changes in communicating with their children. The Metropolitan Parent Center will discuss with Boys Town the opportunity to offer this parent training program again during the upcoming school year. Please visit our Facebook page or the Sinergia calendar in the Fall to learn about the next scheduled parent training workshops.