COURSE DESCRIPTION:

CD219. Parenting. 3 hours credit. Prerequisite: None. A course to assist students in skill development in the communications, and in building a positive self-image in children. Also included are skills necessary to enhance parent or teacher interaction techniques with children.

REQUIRED TEXTBOOK:

Dinkmeyer, Don and McKay, Gary D. Parent’s Handbook: Systematic Training for Effective Parenting, Circle Pine Minnesota: American Guidance Service, 1997 (revised).

Faber, Adele and Mazlish, Elaine. How To Talk So Kids Will Listen and Listen So Kids Will Talk, Rawson, Wade, New York 1980.

COURSE OBJECTIVES:

1. At the completion of this course, the students will be able to:
2. Explain the purpose of children’s behavior and misbehavior.
3. Develop democratic relationships with children and improve family communications.
4. Use skills of listening, resolving conflicts, and exploring alternatives with children.
5. Help children deal with their own feelings and the feelings of others.
6. Use encouragement and logical consequences to modify children’s behavior.
7. Use skills to encourage the child’s autonomy and elicit their cooperation.
8. Demonstrate the ability to conduct family meetings.
9. Identify their own behaviors which keep them from being effective parents and teachers.
10. Identify the effects of separation, divorce, and remarriage on children and explain techniques for helping children to adjust to these situations.
11. Recognize, understand and accept the differences in learning styles.

TOPICAL OUTLINE OF UNITS:

I. Communicating With Children (How to Talk So Kids Will Listen)

The student will be able to:

1. help children deal with their feelings
2. engage cooperation
3. use alternatives to punishment
4. encourage autonomy
5. encourage rather than praise
6. free children from playing stereotyped roles

II. Systematic Training for Effective Parenting

The student will be able to:

1. analyze children’s behavior and misbehavior
2. analyze how children use emotions to involve parents
3. recognize the differences between "good" parents and responsible parents
4. build a child’s confidence by using encouragement
5. improve communication by becoming an effective listener
6. acknowledge feelings
7. develop responsibility in children
8. apply natural and logical consequences
9. select the appropriate approach to discipline
10. establish family meetings
11. respond appropriately to criticism

III. Learning Styles

The student will be able to:

1. determine differences in learning styles
2. plan learning strategies to conform to learning styles
3. identify characteristics of hemispheric specialization

IV. Parenting Issues

The student will be able to:

1. examine issues of divorce/separation that affect children
2. identify stress and develop goals to reduce it

METHOD OF INSTRUCTION

The following teaching/learning activities will assist students to achieve course objectives, lecture, tape program discussions, video and discussion, written assignments, book review and article reviews.

METHOD OF EVALUATION:

Students will be tested. They will also be graded on written assignments, video responses, attendance and class participation.

Grades are determined by the following scale:

93% (A), 86% (B), 76% (C), 70% (D)