Crittenton Family Services

WHO WE ARE, WHAT WE DO

Jun 09, 2000

PARENTING CLASSES
Going into the first of six nights in a new series of Positive Parenting Classes, Denice Cicotte knows that she will have to quickly override a number of impediments. Typically, the registered parents will arrive burdened with resentment, dread, resistance, fear, humiliation, poverty, resistance and suspicion. Their parenting skills may be as low as their self-esteem. While a few will simply want to learn to be better parents, others have parenting problems serious enough to earn the court?’s attention.

Denice, mother of seven, armed with a bachelors degree in psychology, years of experience, and a love of teaching, assures the adults filling the room that the class will be enjoyable enough to help them return the following week. Modeling non-judgmental acceptance, Denice deftly encourages the class into facing themselves through the subject of self-esteem.

Calling herself the ?“Queen of Handouts?” Denice distributes the first of 10 educational flyers illustrating the relationship of low parental self-esteem to low self-esteem in children. Prefacing her personal, professional insights about the rigors of parenting, Denice states clearly that ?“Parenting is a hard thing to do.?”

The CFS Parenting classes offer all parents a chance to learn ?“how to forgive the past, understand themselves, their children?’s needs and how to take responsibility and control of their lives.?” It is an enormous challenge, especially if using too little or too much control is at the heart of parenting problems.

?“What we share with our children, whether it is good or bad, gives our children a picture of themselves,?” said Denice. ?“We need to encourage them.?”

In theory, good parenting may be a matter of keeping your head. Any parent with a child older than 10 minutes knows how children accelerate the speed at which life happens. ?“The primary motivator of child abuse is unreasonable expectations,?” Denice said. But, as Denice explained to her class, most parents do not severely abuse their children. They want to do a good job, but in the trenches of parent/child wars, they end up unwittingly echoing the parenting style, in the words and actions, of their own parents or childhood mentors.

?“Sometimes you have to take the test before you are finished studying,?” Denice said. Choosing to get help can turn that feeling of being a parenting failure into the deep satisfaction one gets from being able to solve a difficult problem. CFS Parenting classes are available for all parents at a number of sites around Franklin County.