Prevention in family services : approaches to family wellness / edited by David R. Mace.
- Date:
- [1983], ©1983
Licence: Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0)
Credit: Prevention in family services : approaches to family wellness / edited by David R. Mace. Source: Wellcome Collection.
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![Guerney, Guerney, and Sebes [223] use of an egg that must never be left behind, and, of course, never broken (to demonstrate the diligence and care necessary in meeting family responsibilities) are among the more original. While marriage and family courses have been traditional offerings for many years in most colleges and some high schools, it is only recently that efforts to use experiential teaching and skills-training have been reported. The experiential and skills-training approach is vastly different from studying marriage statistics and facts about pregnancy and child development. Though far from universal, courses on parenting information and/ or skills are frequently offered. Probably most broadly disseminated is the Education for Parenthood program sponsored by the U.S. Bureau of Education. This program contains cognitive, affective, and behavioral components with observation and active involvement of teenage youngsters with preschoolers in nurseries or day-care centers. Film strips of children and their families are used to discuss child development and parent-child interactions. While oriented toward adult responsibilities, the course does not emphasize projecting one's self into the future. Responding as a teenager to the wonders of little children and their problems and limitations provides the basis for both the cognitive and behavioral aspects. Feedback on practicum experiences is provided. Many schools offer their own versions of Education for Parenthood including parenting courses and practicum components via small child study laboratories. Community preschool children attend for a minimal fee and are cared for by the students under the supervision of the laboratory teacher. Feedback and discussion of developmental principles round out the course. Schools lacking a self-contained child laboratory often arrange to have students volunteer in various community settings. A practicum course entitled Sensitivity to Children (offered by Stollak) in which undergraduates are trained to conduct play therapy sessions has been extremely successful for many years as a means of teaching normal child development. Readings and discussions about parenting behaviors that foster optimal child development and adult-child relationships are stressed in the lecture periods. A parallel course for teachers and child-care workers has also been developed for professional applications. Guerney's Parenting Skills Training program also has been used to train professionals in addition to high school and college populations. Popular now in postsecondary schools (particularly junior colleges) are parent education programs designed for parents currently fune-](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b18037604_0226.JP2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
