Programs For Parents

• Educational Resources

• Workshops

• Data Links

WORKSHOP TOPICS

Understanding Teenagers

This workshop focuses on understanding the changes experienced by today's adolescents.  Parents will learn to deal with these changes and the conflicts that can occur.  Activities are included to help adults develop effective communication skills.

Children:  Ages and Stages

Children don't come with instruction manuals and each is different.  This lesson gives a brief introduction to the ages and stages of childhood.  Information is presented on developmentally appropriate expectations and how you can understand your child through structured experiences.

Successful Single Parenting

Whether single by choice, as the result of the other parent's death, or due to divorce, single parenting can be challenging.  This session provides single parents with resources that can support them in their difficult parenting role.

 Employed Parents

Employed parents faces unique challenges in raising children. This workshop provides activities to help employed parents identify their sources of frustration and satisfaction, consider how these affect their parenting, and explore positive approaches to make improvements.

Family Rituals in Remarried Families

Family rituals are a part of family life. This workshop assists remarried families to learn more about the importance family rituals.  Participants will learn strategies to create new rituals while they also honor the past.

Positive Guidance and Discipline

Guiding and disciplining children is an ongoing process.  The approaches parents use during this process, to a large extent, determine child outcomes.  This program explores parenting styles as well as specific prevention and intervention tools.  Parents have the opportunity to reflect on successes as well as changes needed.

Divorcing Families

Divorce needs to be viewed as an ongoing, complex process.  This lesson covers the issues of divorce as a process, talking with children about divorce, possible effects on children at different ages/stages, and a discussion of working cooperatively with an ex-spouse.

Children of Divorce

This interactive program is geared toward children of divorce or divorcing families.  It uses story telling, imagination skills, and writing or drawing for younger children.  Supportive large and small group discussions help educate and empower children and enhance their resiliency.

Grandparents Raising Grandchildren

As a result of social and economic factors, more grandparents are now raising their grandchildren.  This can be a challenging experience for adults and children.  This program focuses on resources available to support grandparents in this parenting role.

Children's Learning Differences

As the child's first teacher, parents have the responsibility to nurture the child's potential.  This workshop gives parents information and activities to enhance learning in the early years and advocate learning needs during the school-age years.

Raising Responsible Children

To become productive and happy adults, children must learn responsibility.  There is no better place to teach responsibility than at home.  This workshop provides activities that can help parents to develop a responsibility game plan.

Fathers Today

Recent research documents the importance of today's father.  Fathers make many valuable contributions to their children's development.  This program is designed to provide men with new perspectives on their fathering role and how they can be more involved in their children's lives.

  Resources for Today's Parents

Parents, like children, come in all types, sizes and shapes and each parenting situation is different.

The University Outreach and Extension Parent Education Program Team has developed educational programs to reach diverse parent audiences.

A variety of resources and workshops are available to help meet the needs of these audiences:

• Remarried families

• Employed parents

• Single parents

• Divorcing parents

• Children of Divorce

• Grandparents raising grandchildren

• Parents with young children

• Fathers

• Parents of teens

• Children's Learning differences

• Multicultural parents

Parenting Assistance

University Outreach and Extension has a wide variety of programs including the workshops listed in this brochure.  The availability of these programs varies from region to region in the state.  In some locations, there may be a small fee associated with the programs.

The programs are enhanced by the resource materials available in the Parent Education Library located in the College of Human and Environmental Sciences on the MU campus.  For more information, contact:

 Dr. Nina Chen
Human Development Specialist
University Outreach & Extension
1106 W Main St.
Blue Springs, Missouri 64015
(816) 252-5051
Fax: (816) 252-5575
e-mail chenn@missouri.edu