One thought brought Catherine Meehan to this classroom for mothers and fathers. One hope, and one fear: “I don’t want to screw up my kids.”
A few hours earlier, Meehan had walked out of her Coconut Creek, Fla., home in frustration after her 1-year-old wouldn’t stop screaming “Mommy! Mommy! Mommy!” and her 2-year-old wouldn’t stop being a 2-year-old.
So the frazzled 36-year-old, who once worked her way up from secretary to manager at IBM offices across the country, came with textbook and pen to sit shoulder-to-shoulder with others who wanted to learn how to be parents: The right kind of discipline. The wrong kind of stress. Crying and sleeping and eating dilemmas. When to say yes. How to say no. The stuff they don’t teach in school.
“Even with a stable environment and having all of the things that you need, parenting in everyday life is still very frustrating,” Meehan says. “There’s so much I didn’t know about being a mother. So I decided to take a class.”
You learn to drive a car by taking driving lessons. You learn to balance a checkbook in math class. You learn to read in 1st grade. Why shouldn’t parents, charged with possibly the most important responsibility in the world, learn how to do it right?
Hospitals, churches, universities, counseling centers and social service agencies offer programs for adults looking to learn how to be successful parents, mothers and fathers who know there has to be a sane way to raise children despite the tugs that yank adults today in so many different directions. Parents don’t have to rely on instinct, the experts say. And they don’t have to rely on experience, the learn-as-you-go philosophy most of their parents used.
The classes are no longer just for teenage moms or at-risk families, the people referred to counselors through the courts or welfare agencies. They are for mothers like Juli Kagan, of Boca Raton, Fla., who has been taking classes at Ruth Rales Jewish Family Services for 2 1/2 years.
Kagan, a part-time office administrator at her husband’s dental practice, has enrolled in parent-child classes and support groups.
“I’m not just shooting from the hip and saying, `Well, this is how I was taught so this is how I’ll do it,’ ” she says. “I didn’t want to undo what I had grown up with, but I wanted to make it better.”
Besides teaching parenting techniques, classes also help parents overcome feelings of isolation, like being the only parent in the world with a 1-year-old who flushes the toilet for hours on end, or dealing with a toddler who sleepwalks.
Anyone can teach a parenting class; no certification or license is required. Experts encourage parents to consider the trainer’s background and experience when shopping for a class, and select a program that matches a family’s basic beliefs. Some programs are designed for parents and their children; others are for adults only.
More than 2,500 parents enrolled last year in parenting programs at The Parents Place, run through Ruth Rales Jewish Family Services of the South Palm Beach County Jewish Federation.
“Parenting is probably one of the only things that we never get formal education in,” says assistant executive director Bonnie Stelzer. “What we wanted to do was give parents confidence and an environment where they don’t feel so alone and anxious.”
At the family center at Nova Southeastern University in Ft. Lauderdale, parenting programs began 15 years ago with 12 children. Now more than 900 and their parents take one of 86 classes each week.
Nova offers programs seven days a week, including some in the evenings, for mothers, fathers, grandparents, even caregivers. The Saturday and Sunday programs are always in demand because that’s when parents can get away from work to concentrate on the children, director Roni Leiderman says.
“The quantity of time to spend with the family is being diminished, so the quality time is so much more important to parents today,” Leiderman says. “When you enter the realm of parenting, there are some parents who take to it very naturally. And then there are other parents who find it difficult.”
“Today, I just lost it,” Meehan tells nodding, sympathetic faces who sat around the table talking about their families at the parenting class in the Boca hospital. Meehan has two babies and three stepchildren.
“I walked around my neighborhood like a zombie just to get away. It’s so scary.
“I just want to do the right thing,” she says. “I want to be a good parent.”
