Part I of the Power to Parent series focuses on the child-adult relationship as the context for raising children. Parents and professionals learn how this relationship is meant to develop, what can go wrong, why parents must matter more than peers, how to cultivate a context of connection, how to win back one’s child if need be, and more. Parents and professionals are also introduced to discipline strategies that are attachment-safe and developmentally friendly.
Course Description
The prevailing assumption today is that the key to parenting is in knowing what to do. Since children aren’t born with a manual, today’s parents are becoming more dependent upon so-called experts for advice. Yet despite more experts and advice than ever before, parenting is actually becoming more difficult and contrived. The problem, according to Dr. Neufeld, is that the power to parent is slipping away. Parents were never meant to have the most important responsibilities on earth without the corresponding power to do the job. Yet this is the predicament of a growing number of parents who are losing their power to guide and direct their children, to shield and protect them, to nurture and fulfill them, and even to transmit their culture to them.
Parenting should be quite natural and instinctive. Like most deeply rooted instincts, however, the right context is required to `push the right buttons’ in both parents and their children. Science has revealed this context to be the child’s attachment to the parent. When a child is in right relationship to the parent, not only is the child rendered receptive to parenting but the parent is empowered to do the job. The key therefore to effective parenting lies not in what we do but in who we are to our children.
What parents need is insight, not skill, natural power, not manipulative tricks
The primary objectives of the Power to Parent series:
The primary objective of our parent education is to equip adults to raise children with attachment in mind and with true maturation the end result. Our method is to make sense of children to the adults responsible for them. In providing the conceptual underpinnings to natural intuition, our goal is to restore parents to their rightful place in their children’s lives.
Suitability/Applicability
This course is suitable for both parents and professionals although it is addressed primarily to parents, with a focus on parenting.
The material and principles discussed are applicable to children of all ages. The focus of this course is on everyday parenting and everyday problems but the material applies even more so to the more challenging scenarios and problems.
This course can be used for professional development, personal growth, preparation for parenting and even as a primer or enrichment for grandparenting.
The Vital Connection: Topics/Objectives
To see a full course description and outline, please click on the link to the Neufeld Institute website.
Registration Details
The tuition fee for taking The Vital Connection (Power to Parent I) through course facilitation is $200. A minimum of 10 persons is required for the course to go ahead.
Course Facilitator
Kaye McKean
