Learning how to be a parent is not an easy job. People aren't born with parenting skills and they often disagree on how to discipline and show affection for their children.
Family matters! a parenting resource center, is attempting to make this day-to-day process a little easier by co-sponsoring SF State's first parenting class. Parenting Skills-AU 300 provides lectures on parenting and a weekly support group to bring faculty, staff and students together as parents.
The Parenting Resource Center was established in November of 1993 by Dr. Myra Lappin, the director of the Health Center, who gathered a core group of faculty, staff and student representatives to create a program to meet the needs of parents juggling work and school.
Ten months later, after conducting a survey of parents on campus to determine their specific needs, the Parenting Resource Center was opened in Room 33 of the Health Center under the supervision of Eva Winer Wise.
During the first year of the program, parenting workshops were offered through family matters! that were structured specifically from the surveys on topics parents wanted to learn about and discuss in order to promote "excellence in parenting."
The program also developed and maintains a lending library, support group, phone counseling, personal counseling and a baby-sitting cooperative.
Winer Wise said that 8-to-10 percent of the student population are parents and that a majority of them are single parents. She can relate to this experience firsthand because she was a single parent with three small children when she returned to the university to pursue a master's degree in health education in 1973.
"There was nothing here for parents," Winer Wise said. "What parents need most is help with child care and support of other parents."
AU 300 helps parents get the feedback they need as well as parenting education through weekly lectures given by guest lecturers chosen from SF State faculty. Some of the topics they discuss include styles of parenting according to one's culture, single parent challenges and gay/lesbian parenting.
Rosa Wallace, a graduate student in dietetics, is part of the family matters! program and a student in AU 300. She sends her daughter, Stephanie, 5, to the baby-sitting co-op at least once a week and is pleased with it.
"The program works fine, it gives you a break," Wallace said. Although the baby-sitting co-op only has 18 members, the children are taken care of by a different parent each week and there are no fees for child care.
Winer Wise said that the co-op reminded her of the co-op she and her children belonged to when they were growing up in the Mission District.
"Everybody took care of everybody's kids," Winer Wise said.
Cynthia Yannacone, also a member of the family matters! program said that although she has not taken her daughter, Stephanie, 5, to the baby-sitting cooperative, the program itself has helped her become a better parent.
"I found out about the program about a year ago from a flier and went to go speak to Eva about it and she lent me some good books about parenting," Yannacone said.
Family matters!, a parenting resource center, puts out a monthly newsletter to inform its 60 members of its activities because as Winer Wise said, "It's almost impossible to get all the parents together."
AU 300 meets every Wednesday from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m. in the Student Health Center conference room and is facilitated by Sacha Bungee from the psychology department. To find out information about the program contact Eva Winer Wise at ext. 2474.
[ Golden Gater Online October 3, 1996 ]
[ Top]
© All Rights Reserved
HTMLized by Steve Thoemke (sthoemke@nermal.santarosa.edu )