Tin Tức

Despite the advancements we have made as society, parenting as a skill seems to be harder now than it ever was before, given the multi-faceted pressure with which parents are faced when taking care of their child. As such, service providers have taken the opportunity to open parenting class, where parents attend in the hopes of navigating the many responsibilities of being a parent. Parenting classes, when done right, can be very helpful in accomplishing said goal. However, it is also important to remember that there will never be a be-all end-all when it comes to parenting, regardless of how many classes one takes.

Contrary to popular beliefs, parenting is not something one naturally learns as one becomes a parent. Raising a child, like any other skill, needs to be learned. Many would argue against such a notion by virtue of there having been numerous adults that grew up just fine, however this may be quantified, without their parents ever having received formal training on parenting. To that argument, however, one could also counterargue that had said parents attended parenting classes, their children would have been able to grew up even better. The fact of the matter is that it is nearly impossible to determine the value of these classes, for there is no true measurement of how much a child has benefited from their parents attending parenting classes. Similarly, critics of parenting classes could no better critique the value of such classes for there is simply no measurement of how a child’s shortcoming could be attributed to their parents having not received parenting training. Parenting training operates on the principle that there are researched-based parenting principles, and parents would likely have a better time parenting if they were taught it. Parenting classes do not guarantee an outcome, they only make things easier and more accessible to new parents who may be at a loss on what to do. To say that fact alone is enough to undermine the value brought about these classes, however, would be a disservice to young parents out there who are trying to give their child a better chance at having a fulfilling childhood.

To the extent that parenting class could be justified in terms of the quality of the knowledge they aim to impart to learners, parents should indeed consider this option as a supplement to what other parents would refer to as learning by practice. However, given the market nowadays, this is not always the case. More often than not, there are providers trying to pass parenting classes off as the ultimate guide to parenting, which could not be further from the truth even if they did prepare adequate content for those classes. Marketing these classes as the only guide one would need to successful parenting is not only misleading but also detrimental to households whose parents think they have no more to learn, given the fact that a major part of parenting is all about being receptive to input. It is, therefore, important for parents to remember that parenting classes do work, they are certainly not the be-all end-all when it comes to improving your parenting skills.

Parenting classes are, at the end of the day, simply another form of business. They can be helpful with well-researched content, but they must be accompanied by real day-to-day parenting, much like the way theories must be accompanied by practice for them to be helpful.