| Parent education,
drug and substance abuse prevention, school
safety and crisis intervention…on any given
day California educator Kenneth Lake wears many
hats. As the Projects Manager for Prevention
Services for the Placer County (CA) Office of
Education, a Field Colleague for the California
Department of Education on School Safety and
Crisis Intervention, and a parent educator for
Kaiser Permanente, Ken is committed to helping
children and families.
He is also noted for his energetic and
dramatic teaching style. In fact, in a recent
evaluation a parent awarded him an “A”
and concluded he “must have been in the
theater at some time.”
Ken began using the revised Active
Parenting Today program in 1992 to bring
state-of-the-art parent education to families in
his community and has been going strong ever
since. LEADER magazine recently caught
up with this teaching dynamo to discuss the
changes he’s seen in 20 years of teaching
parenting education classes and his experience
with the new Active
Parenting Now program.
Q. After teaching parenting
education classes for 20 years, what do see
as the core issues and benefits for parents?
A.
First, parents are looking for someone to
listen to them. During the six-week course
they get to talk to other parents and see
that theirs is not the only family with
problems. Second, when we show the video
segment about mutual respect you can
literally see jaws drop as parents observe
the effect their own behavior has on their
children. Third, many parents are using
demands and ultimatums as discipline. When we
clarify the difference and talk about the
power of choice and how to come up with a
list of logical consequences, they start to
see changes in their child’s behavior.
Fourth, improving active listening and
communication skills impacts both the
parent-child and couple relationship. I like
that Active Parenting Now gives
greater emphasis to the importance of words,
tone of voice and body language so parents
see earlier and more clearly how these
factors influence their child’s
behavior.
Q. What changes are you seeing in
your parenting classes?
A.
I’m seeing many more parents in blended
families, and also grandparents who have been
thrust back into the parenting role. The
average age of the parents is also going up
due to parents having children later in life.
We are also seeing more attorneys
recommending that divorcing parents attend
parenting classes, and more court-ordered
cases.
Q. What issues are
parents concerned about today?
A.
More parents are expressing concern about
their children not working up to their
potential in school and the influence of the
media. They say their kids are growing up too
quickly and are exposed to too much sex and
violence. This touches on one of the concepts
emphasized in Active Parenting Now—that
it is important for parents to act as screens
or filters to prevent dangerous events from
influencing their children. This is
particularly important in the areas of
tobacco, alcohol or other drugs, reckless
sexuality and violence.
Q. What are some of the other
differences you see between Active Parenting Today and
the new Active Parenting Now
program?
A.
Now the skill development
sections—giving choices, mutual respect,
active listening and setting logical
consequences—have been moved to the
beginning of the program. This gives parents
more time to practice these techniques at
home and then come back to class to discuss
their success and learn from the other
parents. Family meetings have also been moved
up to the first session, so parents have time
to experiment and see what works with their
family. Leading a family meeting takes skill,
and when the parents come back to class they
share their experiences. The additional
emphasis on family meetings as a time for
compliments and planning fun activities, as
well as discussing schedules, chores and
problems, helps children and teens to buy
into the process.
by Diana King
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Ken
Lake
Alfred
Adler and parenting education
Like all Active Parenting programs, the new Active
Parenting Now program is based on the
psychology of Alfred Adler (1870-1937). Adler
was a colleague of Sigmund Freud, and his
groundbreaking theories of psychology form
the basis of modern parent education. In fact
Adlerians have been innovators in developing
new and better products for leading parenting
groups since Rudolf Dreikurs and Vickie Soltz
wrote their groundbreaking guide, 1964’s
Children: The Challenge. A decade
later, in 1976, Don Dinkmeyer and Gary McKay
broke ground again with the publication of
Systematic Training for Effective Parenting
(STEP), a well-designed audiocassette-based
program that made it easy to offer Adlerian
parenting groups everywhere. In 1983, Michael
Popkin moved the field forward again with the
production of Active Parenting, the
first video-based parent education program.
(For more information about Adler and his
theories, try the North American Society of
Adlerian Psychology: www.AlfredAdler.org.)
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