Improving Our Children's Behaviour – And Our Own- With ParentWorks
Yelling, shouting, nagging…having a serious word and letting your kids know how angry you are….
Our negative interactions with our kids can be so intense, emotional and focussed.
Are the positive interactions with your children equally intense and emotional?
They need to be!
This post is brought to you by Nuffnang and ParentWorks
“How did they know we needed help?’
This was my immediate thought when Paul and I were asked to try a new, free online parenting program called ParentWorks.
Life is never plain sailing here at Casa Chaos but events of the past few months have lent an extra degree of disruption.
It’s not surprising that we are having some behaviour problems with our children, nor that we haven’t been dealing with them as well as we could.
We’re only human.
Even though our oldest son is 19, and his diagnosis of autism spectrum at age three meant that we had to quickly skill up on how to parent.
But we forget and life gets stressful… and we need assistance as much as anyone else.
Help is at hand. This course has been the reminder we needed and it’s setting us up for much improved family harmony.
What is ParentWorks?
ParentWorks is a free online parenting program, run by the University of Sydney and funded by the Movember Foundation.
ParentWorks has several modules which present video training with lots of real life examples.
If you are having issues with your child’s behaviour like fighting with siblings, aggression, rudeness, not getting ready for school, fighting bed time routines or misbehaving in public (or all of the above in my case) then this program can give you specific parenting skills that will help.
The Importance of Dads and Teamwork
Did you know that dads are far less likely to attend parenting programs than mums?
ParentWorks aims to reverse this trend by being dad-friendly. You will see lots of video of dads with their kids throughout the program.
There are also clear explanations of why kids do behave badly, and how we parents can inadvertently encourage this.
Teamwork between parents is also encouraged, and I know for sure that this is essential.
Paul and I need to work together, or our four offspring will trample all over us.
When there’s conflict between us, difficult situations can escalate.
ParentWorks – Getting Started
ParentWorks is part of a research program, and it takes three to five hours over as little as four weeks.
You begin by reading about the research and giving your permission to participate. You can opt out at any time.
When registering, you fill in details about one of your children, either the youngest or one that you have most behavioural issues with. I chose my daughter who is 10 although I could have chosen any of them as they all have some tricky behaviours.
ParentWorks – Our Experiences
Paul and I have been watching the modules together. We both got a lot out of the module on reinforcing positive behaviour.
The videos are very clear about how this can be done best and very specific about identifying what to look out for.
The image below shows what we are now working to encourage and reinforce with our daughter.
We have a week now to work on noticing all the positive things about our wee lass, and we are doing that.
The next module for us is called ‘Responding To Misbehaviour’.
I have a suspicion that we are already having less misbehaviour as we are shining a light now on the good stuff rather than being aggravated by all the tricky stuff.
Family harmony is what we want.
We aim for fun, kindness, compassion, love and caring. As parents we need the hand of discipline working together with the hand of love.
All children have some behaviour issues… some of ours have more challenges too.
Paul and I are not afraid or embarrassed to ask for help when we need it.
I’m delighted we are doing the ParentWorks program and to be writing about it here on Hello Sydney Kids.
Sharing information about vital parenting skills is important to me because I have so much experience of behaviour problems in my own children, primarily with our sons who have autism and ADHD, but in the other two typically developing kids too.
And I have seen the enormous power of dads. In our family, in the FIFO years, we also experienced the downside of dad being away for long stretches.
Here’s to harmony in the household. Between the parents, between the parents and their children, and amongst the brothers and sisters too.
It’s possible, it just requires up-skilling, and here’s one way to achieve that.
I hope you will have a look at the ParentWorks program.
Click here to pop over to visit the site.
Best of luck to all of us as we bring our kids up, and here’s to harnessing the immense power of dad.
Do you need any help with your kids at the moment?
Take care