Class Length: 6 weekly, 2-hour sessions
Languages: English & Spanish
Location: Instructors present the classes at your site!

What is Common Sense Parenting?
Common Sense Parenting teaches parents to be more effective. Class participants learn skills that help them encourage their children's positive behaviors, discourage negative behaviors and teach alternatives to problem behaviors. Mothers, fathers and other caregivers learn, practice and demonstrate new parenting skills, the building blocks to stronger family relationships.

Parents Learn:

• To use skills such as preventive teaching, effective praise, and corrective teaching
• To calm down and de-escalate intense situations, curbing the potential for physical abuse
• To set reasonable expectations based on their child's developmental levels
• To actively listen and open the lines of communication with their children
• To help their children express feelings in positive and appropriate ways
• To build strong, stable and healthy families using research-proven techniques
  

Presentations involve the following:

Review — discussion of skill learned the previous week (homework)
Instruction — teaching of a new skill
Modeling — providing both live and videotaped examples of the skill
Role-play/feedback — an opportunity to practice the learned skill
Summary — comments, questions and instructions for homework assignments

The six sessions teach skills that build on each other. They include the following:

• Parents As Teachers — Overview, Developing Consequences
• Effective Praise — Catching Your Child Doing Well
• Preventive Teaching — Setting Your Child Up for Success
• Corrective Teaching — Responding to Problem Behaviors
• Teaching Self-Control — Dealing With Intense Situations
• Putting It All Together — Practicing All the Skills, Helping Your Child Problem Solve and Make Decisions

Studies of the effectiveness of the Common Sense Parenting program indicate:

• Decreases in reported child behavior problems with children ages 3 to 16
• Increases in satisfaction with family functioning and effectiveness
• Consistent effects across socioeconomic levels, ethnic and racial groups
• Reduction in out-of-home placements for children who come from abusive/neglectful families
• Reduction in the potential for child physical abuse

Rated "OUTSTANDING" by The Parent Council©

"A logical and sensible approach to parenting, featuring good examples that our parents gave thumbs up to."
     The National Parenting Center’s 1997 Seal of Approval Winner

Testimonials from Parents
I signed up for Common Sense Parenting because I am a single mother and I was having difficulty with my eight children. Two of them are my own, one a niece whose father is in jail, two are adopted, and three are foster children. One has profound medical issues and another has fetal alcohol effects from birth. Two have cerebral palsy.

I needed the most help with my 8 year old, Timothy, who has reactive attachment disorder, pica, ADHD, and an anxiety disorder. He was being sent home from school every day for hitting, biting, calling teachers names, stealing and destroying property. One day he even took a knife to school. After I took the second Common Sense Parenting class, he went three days without getting trouble at school, and after I completed the final class he went a whole month. A friend asked Timothy what was different, why was he doing so well at school and he said, "Because my Mom's getting smarter. She went to school to learn how to deal with me."

Now my life is so much better I can't believe it. Our family is much nicer and more considerate to one another. This has been the most amazing training I have ever been to. And I have been to hundreds of training's over the last 19 years. This one actually works!
      Mickie, Wenatchee

My 7 year old son started crying just before my final Common Sense Parenting class. I asked him what was bothering him and he told me that he didn't want the classes to finish because of the changes I had made. I had stopped shouting, I had stopped spanking and I had more time to play and speak with all my children. My son was afraid I'll go back to the way I was before the classes started.
       Mary, Seattle

Before my participation in this program, I was very aggressive with my 3 year old son. Everything he did bothered me and my abusiveness got me into trouble with the law. This program taught me how to stay calm, to think clearly before I act, and especially to show love to him. Now I'm having a lot of fun with my son and I feel much more confident in myself as a parent. Gracias!
      Salvador, Everett