Educated Parenting

More on Making Effective Parenting a Priority...And the Presidential Election

It has been a year since it was announced here that a National Effective Parenting Initiative (NEPI) had been started to help make both effective parenting and parenting education national priorities.

Much progress has been made, including having generated a White House Briefing on a proposal to have a Department of Effective Parenting that would assist all parents and all communities in raising healthy and achieving young people. NEPI now has three membership programs with many membership benefits and related newsletters.  There is now a membership program for Parents, for Professionals who deliver services to children, parents and families, and for Organizations that help parents.  All of these programs are available on the NEPI website, www.effectiveparentingusa.org.

Right now myself and other leaders of NEPI are trying to raise consciousness among the candidates for the presidency that they should be including the needs of the more than 100 million voters who are parents in what they are proposing to do for our nation.  Up to this time, none of the candiates have even commented on the importance of helping America's parents in the awesome job of raising the next generation.

Making Effective Parenting a Priority

On several prior occasions, I have spoken about the need for a national effort to promote effective parenting and parenting education.

Well, such an effort has begun!

A coalition of concerned individuals and organizations has started NEPI, the National Effective Parenting Initiative.  Its goal is to have every child in our country effectively and humanely raised by parents who receive the best possible parenting education, training and support.

You can become part of this important grassroots endeavor by visiting the NEPI website and learning about all of the involvement opportunities.

You can also make a statement right now by signing The Effective Parenting Petition to let the nation and our elected representatives know that effective parenting MUST be made a local and national priority!

Do participate.  And do let me know what you think about NEPI.

A National Effective Parenting Initiative

It's time for the United States of America to make effective parenting and parenting education national priorities!

Effective parenting is the key to instilling in our children the cherished family values of responsibility, respect, compassion, cooperation, hard work and nonviolence.  Effective parenting consists of providing children with an abundance of warmth and acceptance, being responsive to their needs and behaviors, being very much involved in their lives, and providing fair and firm family leadership.  And effective parenting is the remedy for many costly and tragic problems like child abuse and neglect, school failure, youth drug abuse, juvenile delinquency, gangs and crime.

Parenting education is the most direct means for helping more parents to be effective.  And there now exists an array of research-proven Parenting Skill-Building Programs to use in educating parents, as well as a readiness and desire on the part of many local schools, agencies, religious and civic groups to bring such education to more parents.  Indeed, some of these groups, who constitute a movement, are already providing some of this valuable education, but not in all its varied forms and certainly not in all communities.

What has been missing is a systematic, national plan for making these and other modern parenting education resources available to every parent in every community.  Also lacking has been leadership from elected officials.

I have just created such a plan.

Previews of Coming Attractions

Here's some of what you can look forward to in the next few weeks on EducatedParenting.com:

Soothing Crying Babies -- An Approach That Works (Sept. 8, 2005)

National Effective Parenting Initiative  --  A Systematic Plan for Making Effective Parenting and Parenting Education National Priorities (Sept. 13, 2005)

A Four-Part Parenting Skill-Building Series to Learn The Encouragement Approach to Conveying Warmth (Sept. 15, 20, 22 and 27, 2005)

Tune in, stay educated, and help implement an important plan!

Presidents As Champions of Effective Parenting?

One of the main responsibilities of the people who we elect to the presidency is to ensure life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness for all citizens.

For each child, it is her or his parents who have this awesome responsibility.

When parents are effective in nurturing and guiding their children’s growth, their children are more likely to develop the full range of competencies that maximize a healthy, happy and just existence.  Effectively raised children also are more likely to make positive community contributions.

The reverse is also true.  Ineffectively and poorly raised youngsters are more likely to be less competent, and to become delinquents, drug abusers, gang bangers and criminals, making community life hazardous and more costly for all.

So, it would seem, the person at the top of the responsibility hierarchy for insuring life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, the president, is an ideal person to champion effective parenting. 

I have been trying for years to get this point across, and to encourage such concrete evidence of such championing as a Presidential Council on Effective Parenting (see 1997 Position Paper on Family Values, Effective Parenting and A Presidential Council on Effective Parenting).