Parenting Puzzle

‘How to get the best out of family life'

Don't we all want to get the best out of our family life?

I believe that the most important job any of us ever does is parent our children and it is the job that on the whole we have the least training and preparation for.

The Parenting Puzzle course is designed to help us be better parents of our precious children.

The course is designed by Family Links and is part of their Nurturing Programme.

It is a ten week programme originating from research done by an American called Dr Stephen Bavolek in the early 1980's. He was a pioneer in the prevention of chid abuse and neglect and the development of family education.

Dr Bavolek's research identified four destructive approached to parenting which he turned on their heads and based his programme on 4 constructs. These are the foundation stones they are:

• Self awareness and self esteem
• Appropriate expectations
• Empathy
• Positive discipline

The 10 week course covers topics such as:

• Giving praise
• The question of discipline
• Family rules
• Time out - to calm down
• Choices and consequences
• Feelings and what we do with them
• Nurturing ourselves
• Kinds of touch
• Stress in children
• Issues around sex
• Problem solving and negotiating
• Helping children grow up
• Communicating - using ‘I' statements
• Ages and stages of child development

Each session last about 2 hours and we have run and evening course and a daytime course with a crèche during TOAST.

There has been talk of running a course just for the dads in the pub (if anyone is keen to do this please speak to Liz).

Every person who joins a parenting puzzle group is given a Parenting Puzzle handbook (they cost £10.00 and you can pay for them if you wish). This is your guide to the course and an excellent resource to use and refer to.

A typical evening:

Welcome	Good quality coffee, tea and cakes (or beer and crisps if we are in the pub)
Family feedback	How is it going? Feedback on how the suggestions made last week have worked Practice praising each other.
1st topic	Discussion and activities
	Coffee break
2nd topic	Discussion and activities
Time to have a go	Suggestions of ways to use the things we have talked about during the coming week.

On the evaluation forms that we have had returned from the previous groups the response has been very positive comments such as

‘wonderful, so laid back, but I felt involved, very respected and always listened to'

‘I have found it helpful'

‘positive atmosphere – very open'

‘Fab'

So far we have run five courses and 25 families have benefited from this training.

We are planning to run a Parenting Puzzle course in the very near future.

Denise and Liz have completed the training and we would love to see every family in the church and in our community having access to this resource.

If you would like to be included in the next group please let Liz or Denise know and we will make the arrangements.

The Parenting Puzzle material is best suited to families with children under 12 years of age.

Each course ends with a social for the families involved we had a picnic in the summer and a walk at Wimpole recently to end latest course.

Liz or Denise can be contacted on (01767) 261764, or via the Potton Vineyard office email.