National Parents as Teachers day celebrates parent education

Young children grow and change at an extraordinary rate and don't come with a "how to" manual. Yet advice for parents comes from many different avenues ranging from health and governmental agencies to companies selling products for babies. Parents are forced to decipher between genuine help and biased promotional plugs, not to mention myths circulating about hidden agendas to control and regulate the American family. Parents As Teachers National Center is using this year's National Parents As Teachers Day on Nov. 8 to confirm the program's status as a reliable source in the early childhood field and ability to provide parents with unbiased, research-based parenting and child development support.

Parents As Teachers works with families who have children younger than kindergarten-age. Certified parent educators offer parents practical ways to encourage learning, manage challenging behavior and promote strong parent-child relationships. The Parents As Teachers program is free and participation is voluntary. Families who enroll in the program benefit from group meetings for parents to enhance their parenting knowledge, periodic child screenings for vision, hearing and overall development, and referrals to a network of community services. However, Parents As Teachers is often best known for its personal visits during which parent educators meet one-on-one with families to discuss a child's specific needs and development.

Because Parents As Teachers information and support is so widely accepted and transferable it is often folded into other early childhood education organizations like Head Start/Early Head Start and the Bureau of Indian Affairs, family literacy programs such as Even Start, school districts, child care centers, faith-based programs, social service agencies, public health departments, family resource centers, military bases and even correctional institutions.

"In these cases where Parents As Teachers support is offered as part of another organization, parents might not even know they are receiving Parents As Teachers support yet they are still benefiting from all it has to offer," said Susan Stepleton, president and CEO of Parents As Teachers National Center.

To become a certified parent educator one must successfully complete Parents As Teachers National Center trainings to work with and provide parents with time-tested, expert-based information and techniques for enriching and encouraging a child's development. Parents As Teachers is not funded by or meant to promote any given agenda other than to provide parents from all walks of life with the information and skills they need to be their child's best, first teacher and role model. More than a dozen independent studies over 25 years have verified the effectiveness of the Parents As Teachers model, known as Born to Learn. Studies show that Parents As Teachers children have higher levels of school readiness and continue to outperform their peers in first through fourth grades.

"There are now nearly 15,000 trained and certified Parents As Teachers parent educators working in programs almost evenly split between rural and non-rural communities," said Stepleton. "Nearly three million children have been served by Parents As Teachers since 1985, including more than one-third million children in 2004 alone. Two million children have also been screened for developmental delays and speech and hearing problems. This is success worth calling for a celebration not just on Nov. 8, but every day."

Around the globe, programs offering Parents As Teachers services will celebrate National Parents As Teachers Day with their own local celebrations for families and the community.

Parents who wish to learn more about Parents As Teachers are encouraged to visit www.ParentsAsTeach

ers.org. While on the site they can also take advantage of other useful information such as current news, parenting tips and activities, suggested reading and links to resources. Parents can even sign up for free e-mail newsletters tailored for their child's specific age on the five areas of development: language, pre-writing, intellectual, social-emotional and motor development. For local Parents As Teachers information, contact Nevada Parents As Teachers at (417) 448-2061. For those not living in the Nevada R-5 District, please contact your district for services.

The Parent Educators serving the Nevada R-5 District are Lynnette Foster, Crystal Burch and Winter Kutina. To commemorate PAT Day, they will be hosting a monthly playgroup at the Nevada PAT Center, located at 425 N Elizabeth.

Playgroups will be held from 10 to 11:30 a.m. and from 1 to 2:30 p.m. on Wednesday, Nov. 17. All families with children from prenatal up to those who have not yet entered Kindergarten are welcome to attend. The group is actively enrolling families at this time. Enrollments can be taken by phone at (417) 448-2061 or in person at the PAT Center.

National Parents As Teachers Day was established in 2001 as a day to pay tribute to the thousands of trained and certified parent educators giving support to parents in the critical early years of their child's development. It is celebrated every year on Nov. 8. Parents As Teachers sites around the globe will be celebrating with themed events, group meetings and media promotion.