Wednesday, October 19, 2011

Quiet Parenting

Quiet Parenting - online parent courses
Learn practical, easy-to-use strategies to improve your relationship with your children. Your family life will become more peaceful and less stressful. Best of all, you will be teaching your children important life-long skills to help them to regulate themselves and manage their emotions.
Join a small group of parents and an online presenter for an online session each week for four weeks. $99 Special booking code
SAV-QP
Quiet Parenting courses start soon – book now!
www.parentschool.com.au, 1300 130 700, info@parentschool.com.au.


AUSTRALIA’S FIRST ‘LIVE’ ONLINE PARENT EDUCATION COURSES
A psychologist and an aircraft engineer have teamed‐up to design Australia’s first ‘live’ online parent education program. Michael Hawton and Brett Drinkwater – with their respective spouses – have seven children between them. Hawton has over 20 years experience and his company has trained over 4,500 family services workers in parent education nationally and Drinkwater is an e‐learning expert, who has experience in the corporate sector.

• Quiet Parenting is an engaging interactive e‐course, taught to parents as a “real‐time” parent education program – of groups of up to 20 parents.

• The Australian Institute of Family Studies has found support for this view in its recent surveys of parents, finding that over a quarter of parents would prefer to learn about parenting online.

• With the arrival of the National Broadband Network in Australia, the time is ripe for expanding into this type of format for online parent education. Quiet Parenting equips parents with easy‐to‐use strategies they can apply immediately. Family life will become more peaceful and parents will feel less stressed. Best of all, over the longer term, parents will be teaching their children important life‐long skills that will help them to selfregulate.

As the first in a number of courses, Quiet Parenting is aimed at helping parents of 2‐12 year olds to manage their children’s difficult behaviour – quietly. The program is tailored to teach parents practical strategies for dealing with children’s difficult behaviour, without having to raise their voices to gain cooperation from their children. Two other parent courses – one for parents of teenagers ‐ are in development, and Indigenous and on‐English‐speaking parent’s online versions of the Quiet Parenting program are to be released in 2012.

Held as both morning and evening programs, Quiet Parenting courses begin, nationwide, in October 2011 and easy enrolment is found at http://www.parentschool.com.au/ Michael Hawton, MAPS has created the Quiet Parenting for parents who would find it difficult to attend face‐to‐face courses. “The program is easy to sit‐down to after getting the kids off to school in the morning or after they go to bed in the evening. We believe that this format will be particularly useful for parents from rural areas who would have less access to parent education classes. It would also be useful to parents in city environments, where parents find it difficult to go out again after a hard day’s work,” Hawton said.

Quiet Parenting courses are facilitated by parenting experts, who are also virtual classroom leaders, so parents have the benefit of online education but also opportunities to exchange ideas in a “real‐time” learning environment. According to Drinkwater, “the program is full of interactive learning experiences. Parents meet online for one‐and‐a‐half‐hours sessions, once a week over four weeks. They’ll learn lots of great new skills and gain knowledge to better understand their children’s behaviour by way of expert commentary, whiteboard exercises, slideshows, videos, work sheets, and group activities – all aimed at making this type of learning as engaging as possible”. “The latest findings in neuroscience show that the brain is somewhat plastic and that connections in the brain can improve in response to repeated behaviour. Parents who give their
children practice at ‘toggling’ (or switching) between their old reactive brain and new rational brain, will help their children to become better at self‐regulating”, Hawton said.

Many people say that interactive e‐learning is more suited to a better learning compared to non‐interactive parenting online courses in Australia, because parents learn together and have the opportunity of exchanging ideas and experiences.

Written by a psychologist, but less expensive than seeing a psychologist* on a one to one basis, Quiet Parenting uses internet technology to bring the best of parenting advice within easy reach wherever you live in Australia.
http://www.parentschool.com.au/

* Based on the APS recommended fee