CICC's Confident Parenting Program Helps Prevent Child Abuse

Excerpt : April is National Child Abuse Prevention Month as well as the National Month of the Young Child. Both serve to focus public attention on the needs of children and their families, particularly the

April is National Child Abuse Prevention Month as well as the National Month of the Young Child. Both serve to focus public attention on the needs of children and their families, particularly the need for quality parenting education.

Lack of parenting skills and the frustration that comes from not knowing how to deal with and manage a child's behavior significantly increases the risk of child abuse. Parents often feel controlled by their children's misbehaviors because they do not know how to set limits effectively. They may pay so much attention when their children misbehave that they forget to notice the cooperative and peaceful times.

The Center for the Improvement of Child Caring's Confident Parenting Program teaches parents how to pay attention to and how to increase the times when their children's behavior is good. It also teaches effective limit-setting skills so that parents

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will not feel victimized by their children's misbehavior.

The program provides parents effective skills to manage such child behaviors as:

1. Disruptiveness
2. Fears
3. Shyness
4. Tantrums
5. Bedwetting
6. Restlessness
7. Disobedience
8. Laziness
9. Aggressiveness

The Confident Parenting Program has been used for over two decades within community mental health agencies, and it was selected to represent the social learning or behavioral approach to parent training as part of the continuing education program sponsored by the National Institute of Mental Health.

Recently the program was updated and three new sections have been added. These include Corporal Punishment, Modeling and Family Rules.

The Confident Parenting Program's versatility and utility is reflected in the fact that in addition to being used to prevent child abuse, it has also

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been used extensively in regular and special education settings, Head Start agencies, private practices and in churches and temples. Its value-free application of child management skills has allowed for its successful use with a wide variety of ethnic minority groups.

The program is usually conducted for small groups of parents in ten two-hour sessions. Its specific skills, such as effective praising, can be the focus of one-session parent meetings. There is also a one-day seminar version available.

Research studies demonstrate that CICC's Confident Parenting Program reduces the need for additional family or child services, significantly diminishes a variety of child behavior problems, improves overall family relations and provides useful alternatives to corporal punishment.

Thus, it can provide a community with an intervention to promote child mental health and prevent child abuse and

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school failure. By so doing, the program also aids in preventing drug abuse, delinquency and gang involvement.

Parents and others can learn about and use the program's parenting skills and strategies by purchasing the parent handbook which is available on the CICC Website (http://www.ciccparenting.org/catalogitem.asp?ci=51&cid=&c=2).

CICC can arrange to have a professional instructor come to a community, school or business and deliver a one-day parenting seminar, on the program. (http://ciccparenting.org/NewsLetters/OneDaySeminar_ColleagueHome.htm)

Individuals can also enroll in an Instructor Training Workshop, where they can become a certified parenting instructor and conduct the program themselves. (