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Here you will learn about the three parenting skill-building programs created by the
Center for the Improvement of Child Caring.
The Confident Parenting Program is designed for use with all parents and it teaches a
positive parenting philos ophy (the Social Learning Approach) and a series of very
practical parenting skills to enhance the quality of family life and decrease problems.
The Effective Black Parenting and Los Niños Bien Educados Programs are culturally-
adapted versions of the Confident Parenting Program which took a decade to develop
and test. These are the first culturally-adapted parenting skill-building programs in the
nation. They teach a similar positive philosophy and all of the skills that are taught in
Confident Parenting. In addition, they teach the skills in a culturally-sensitive manner
and they frame the skills within the values and the cultural goals of each group.
Parenting issues that are unique to each cultural group are also given special
emphasis.
Taken as a whole, these three programs provide communities with many options for
training and educating large segments of their parent populations.
Each program is described in two ways. An initial description is available that briefly
indicates what is taught and how to bring the program to a community, agency, school
or other setting.
There is also a very detailed description of each program for those who may be writing
proposals to government agencies or foundations to help bring the programs to their
areas.
Select program you would like to learn about.
CICC’s Confident Parenting: Survival Skills Training
CICC’s Effective Black Parenting
CICC’s Los Niños Bien Educados
CICC's Confident Parenting: Survival Skills Training Program
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Unlocking the mysteries of child behavior
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Parents often feel controlled by their children's misbehaviors because they do not know
how to set limits effectively. They may pay so much attention when their children mess
up that they forget to notice the cooperative and peaceful times.
CICC's Confident Parenting Program teaches parents how to pay attention to and how
to increase the times when their children's behavior is good. It also teaches effective
limit-setting skills so that parents will not feel victimized by their children’s
misbehavior.
The program provides parents effective skills to manage such child behaviors as:
- Disruptiveness
- Fears
- Shyness
- Tantrums
- Bedwetting
- Restlessness
- Disobedience
- Laziness
- Aggressiveness
The skills and strategies that parents are taught to increase their children’s self-esteem
and cooperation, and to non-violently manage the above behaviors, include:
- Learning How To Pinpoint and Chart Child Behaviors
- Effective Praise
- Mild Social Disapproval
- Systematic Ignoring
- Time Out from Social Attention
- Special Incentives
- Contracting
- Family Rule Guidelines
The Confident Parenting Program has been used for over two decades within
community mental health agencies, and it was selected to represent the social learning
or behavioral approach to parent training as part of the continuing education program
sponsored by the National Institute of Mental Health.
Its versatility and utility is reflected in the fact that it has also been used extensively in
child abuse programs, regular and special education settings, Head Start agencies,
private practices and in churches and temples. Its value-free application of child
management skills has allowed for its successful use with a wide variety of ethnic
minority groups.
The program is usually conducted for small groups of parents in ten two-hour sessions.
Its specific skills, such as effective praising, can be the focus of one-session parent
meetings. There is also a one-day seminar version available.
Research studies demonstrate that CICC’s Confident Parenting Program reduces the
need for additional family or child services, significantly diminishes a variety of child
behavior problems, improves overall family relations and provides useful alternatives to
corporal punishment. Thus, it can provide a community with an intervention to promote
child mental health and prevent child abuse and school failure. By so doing, the
program also aids in preventing drug abuse, delinquency and gang involvement.
Program Description for Grant Writing Purposes
A detailed description of the program's content, history and evaluation research studies
is also available on this Website. The detailed description is written for professionals,
agencies and school districts that are interested in writing grant proposals to generate
funds that will enable them to bring the Confident Parenting program to the families
they serve. Click here to go to this detailed description.
Bring a Confident Parenting Seminar or Class to Your Community
CICC can arrange to have a professional instructor come to your community and deliver
a one-day seminar, one-session meeting or a multiple-session parenting class in this
program. Click here to begin the process.
Become a Parenting Instructor
Another way to bring this program to your community is for you or other people to
become a certified parenting instructor in this program. Then, you will be best qualified
to conduct the program yourself. Click here to learn about CICC’s workshops to train
parenting instructors.
Obtain Instructional Materials
You can also bring this program to your area by obtaining the complete Instructor’s Kit
of training materials. If you are already a skilled parenting educator or group leader,
you will be able to use these materials in learning how to run the program on your own.
Otherwise, we suggest you enroll in an Instructor Training Workshop, where you will
receive the complete Instructor’s Kit, plus training by a professional and certification.
Click here to obtain the complete Instructor’s Kit.
Obtain Parent Handbook
In addition, you can learn about and use the program’s parenting skills and strategies
by purchasing the parent handbook. Click here to obtain the parent handbook.
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CICC's Effective Black Parenting Program
Raising Proud and Confident African-American Children
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- Award Winning
- Research Validated
- Parent Tested
- Culturally Affirming
- Extensively Utilized
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Effective Black Parenting
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A dynamic and culturally relevant skill-building program for
raising proud and confident African-American Children
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Raising African American Children in the United States is an extremely challenging
task. Though all children progress through similar stages of development, and all
children need nurturance and sensitive guidance, African American children and their
parents face special problems as a result of our country's history of racism and
discrimination. These problems often make it harder to raise proud and capable African
American children.
Until the Center for the Improvement of Child Caring (CICC) created the Effective Black
Parenting Program in the late 1970's, there were no programs that addressed these
problems head on. There were also no programs that taught parenting skills in a
manner that was respectful of African American patterns of communication and which
recognized the African roots of the Extended Black Family. Thus, the program occupies
a very special place in the history of parenting education in the United States.
CICC's Effective Black Parenting Program, which is based on an achievement
orientation to African American parenting, provides an excellent learning and relearning
context to help parents of African American children do the best job possible. Its basic
ideas are derived from the writings of African American parenting scholars, from
research with African American parents, and from adaptations of parenting skills that
have been found helpful in raising children of all ethnic and socioeconomic
backgrounds.
The parenting skills that are taught in the program are:
- Describing and Counting Behaviors
- Effective Praise
- Mild Social Disapproval
- Systematic Ignoring
- Time Out from Social Attention
- The Point System Method
- Chit Chat Time
Three culturally specific parenting strategies are also taught:
- The Path to the Pyramid of Success for Black Children
- Traditional Black Discipline vs. Modern Black Self-Discipline
- Pride in Blackness
Other parenting strategies and topics are also taught and covered:
- Family Rule Guidelines
- The Thinking Parent’s Approach
- Children’s Developing Abilities
- Drugs and Our Children
- Single Parenting
Each of the parenting strategies and skills in CICC's Effective Black Parenting Program
is taught by making reference to African proverbs like "Children are the reward of life"
or "A shepherd does not strike his sheep." The systematic use of these proverbs helps
to ground the teachings of the program in the wisdom and skillfulness of the African
ancestors, and is an example of one of the many ways that the program promotes
cultural pride.
Between the period when the program was first taught in 1979 through 2003, over
150,000 parents have enrolled and benefited.
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What Parents Say About the
Effective Black Parenting
Program
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"After taking the course, I would like to
see more Blacks become involved,
including my family members. My
feelings are exactly like coming to know
God. Once you've seen the light, you
want everyone to see the same light so
we as a race will not parish."
Tulsa, Oklahoma
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"My son loves me now. He doesn't fear
me."
Minneapolis, Minnesota
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"It taught me to be more patient with my
children, to listen, to know that they are
little human beings and have feelings
too. Somehow that got lost - so it put me
back on track."
Oakland, California
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"I learned things from the class that I
really needed to know. A lot of us didn't
always get the structure from our
parents, so we're trying to break out of
that parenting cycle into one that will
allow us to help our children meet their
goals."
Seattle, Washington
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"I never gave my children a chance to
express themselves. It was always 'Shut
up. I'm the mother, you're the child.
What I say goes, and that's that.' But
what I've come to realize is that children
have ideas and opinions too and they
need to express them."
Los Angeles, California
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The Class Version of Effective Black Parenting
The complete Effective Black Parenting Program is designed to be taught as a class for
small groups of 15 to 30 parents. The class meets for 15 3-hour sessions on a weekly or
bi-weekly basis. The last session is a graduation ceremony where the parents receive
certificates and deliver brief speeches. The class is often taught in schools, churches,
mosques, agencies, community centers and even in private homes.
An instructor conducts the class, using a 333 page manual that contains fully-scripted
guidelines for teaching each session and each of the program's parenting skills,
strategies and special topics. The instructor demonstrates each skill and then has the
parents practice it in class before going home to use it with their children. The
instructor also uses a series of highly attractive charts (instructional transparencies) to
help parents learn and recall key points.
The parents receive a Parent's Handbook that reinforces what the instructor teaches.
The Handbook includes the activities the parents are to engage in at home as they apply
the program's parenting skills. Parents report each week on their home use of skills and
receive helpful feedback from their instructor and classmates.
The Seminar Version of Effective Black Parenting
A brief version of the program for large groups of parents is also available.
The One-Day Seminar teaches a shortened version of several of the program's
parenting strategies and skills.
Seminar leaders use a special Seminar Leader's Guide, along with the manual for the
class version, as they conduct this training event. They also show many of the charts
from the class version.
Each parent receives a special Parent's Guide that outlines everything that is taught in
the seminar. Parents take this guide home with them to remind them how to use the
strategies and skills they learned in the seminar.
The Seminar Version is designed for anywhere from 50 to 500 parents, and can be
taught at any setting in the community that has a large meeting hall or auditorium. It has
been used as an introduction to the complete program and as a vehicle for recruiting
parents into the complete program. It has also been used as a gala, stand-alone
educational event. Either type of use provides the participating parents with a
stimulating day of training, and with skills they can use immediately.
Program Description for Grant Writing Purposes
A detailed description of the program's content, history and evaluation research studies
is also available on this Website. The detailed description is written for professionals,
agencies and school districts that are interested in writing grant proposals to generate
funds that will enable them to bring the Effective Black Parenting program to the
families they serve. Click here to go to this detailed description.
Bring an Effective Black Parenting Seminar or Class to Your Community
CICC can arrange to have a professional instructor come to your community and deliver
a one-day seminar, one-session meeting or a multiple-session parenting class in this
program. Click here to begin the process.
Become a Parenting Instructor
Another way to bring this program to your community is for you or other people to
become a certified parenting instructor in this program. Then, you will be best qualified
to conduct the program yourself. Click here to learn about CICC’s workshops to train
parenting instructors.
Obtain Instructional Materials
You can also bring this program to your area by obtaining the complete Instructor’s Kit
of training materials. If you are already a skilled parenting educator or group leader,
you will be able to use these materials in learning how to run the program on your own.
Otherwise, we suggest you enroll in an Instructor Training Workshop, where you will
receive the complete Instructor’s Kit, plus training by a professional and certification.
Click here to obtain the complete Instructor’s Kit.
Obtain Parent Handbook
In addition, you can learn about and use the program’s parenting skills and strategies
by purchasing the parent handbook. Click here to obtain the parent handbook.
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CICC's Los Niños Bien Educados Program
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Latinos
Diversity within cultural diversity:
special challenges, special opportunities
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The Los Niños Bien Educados Program is built around the value of raising
children to be "bien educados," i.e., well-behaved in a social and personal sense, as
well as educated in an academic sense. It explores parental definitions of what
constitutes "bien educados" and looks at how these definitions get expressed in
traditional family, gender role and age expectations of children. From this cultural
framework, it teaches parents a wide variety of strategies and skills for promoting and
maintaining those child behaviors that they define as constituting "bien educados" and
for reducing those that they see as reflecting "mal educados."
Developed especially for Spanish-speaking and Latino-origin parents, this parenting
skill building program is respectful of the unique traditions and customs of Latino
families and is sensitive to the variety of adjustments that are made as Latino families
acculturate to life in the United States.
Los Niños Bien Educados is based on child rearing research with Latino families,
the recommendations of Latino educators and mental health authorities, and
adaptations of parenting skills that have been found to be helpful for parents of all
ethnic and social class backgrounds.
Parents are oriented to consider the potential causes of "mal educados." This includes
teaching basic child development information to assist parents in arriving at age-
appropriate expectations. Information about child abuse and child abuse laws helps
broaden understandings of what is considered proper and improper parental behavior
in the United States.
The basic parenting skills and strategies that taught are:
- What parents do for children (i.e., parental functions)
- The meaning of bien and mal educados
- Specific behaviors
- Family Expectations
- Methods for Increasing Respectful Behaviors
- First You Work, Then You Play
- Effective Praising
- Methods for Decreasing Disrespectful Behaviors
- Effective Ignoring
- Mild Social Disapproval
- Time Out from Parental Attention
- Using Methods in Combination with Each Other
This program addresses important cultural issues having to do with the different types
of adjustments immigrant families make to the United States, and the impact of
traditional family and gender roles on the expectations that parents have for their
children. It also teaches parents special strategies for evaluating expectations, for
understanding the causes of children’s behaviors, and for how and what to think before
and after you act.
All skills are taught with an awareness of the potential cultural conflicts that might
emerge from their use and with a sensitivity to the life circumstances of low income
Latino families. They are taught with the use of "dichos," or Spanish sayings, to help
nest them in a culturally and linguistically familiar context. Amusing drawings of family
life also enliven the teaching of skills and concepts, and all sessions end with a
"platica" where parents take leadership roles in solving common problems.
The program is designed to be taught in Spanish or English and consists of 12 three-
hour training sessions. Its initial field testing in the 1980's was with newly immigrated
Latino families and it was highly successful. Subsequent studies have shown it to be
effective with all generations and all Latino populations
(see Program Description for
Grant Writing Purposes).
Los Niños Bien Educados is now being used nationwide with a variety of Latino-
Americans. It has become the centerpiece of parent involvement programs in numerous
school districts, as well as serving as part of drop-out prevention projects. It is also
being used by a variety of communities as part of their efforts to combat child abuse,
drug abuse, juvenile delinquency, gangs and crime.
Now, there also exists a one-day seminar version of the program.
Program Description for Grant Writing Purposes
A detailed description of the program's content, history and evaluation research studies
is also available on this Website. The detailed description is written for professionals,
agencies and school districts that are interested in writing grant proposals to generate
funds that will enable them to bring the Los Niños Bien Educados program to the
families they serve. Click here to go to this detailed description.
Bring a Los Niños Bien Educados Parenting Seminar or Class
to Your Community
CICC can arrange to have a professional instructor come to your community and deliver
a one-day seminar, one-session meeting or a multiple-session parenting class in this
program. Click here to begin the process.
Become a Parenting Instructor
Another way to bring this program to your community is for you or other people to
become a certified parenting instructor in this program. Then, you will be best qualified
to conduct the program yourself. Click here
to learn about CICC’s workshops to train
parenting instructors.
Obtain Instructional Materials
You can also bring this program to your area by obtaining the complete Instructor’s Kit
of training materials. If you are already a skilled parenting educator or group leader,
you will be able to use these materials in learning how to run the program on your own.
Otherwise, we suggest you enroll in an Instructor Training Workshop, where you will
receive the complete Instructor’s Kit, plus training by a professional and certification.
Click here to obtain the complete Instructor’s Kit.
Obtain Parent Handbook
In addition, you can learn about and use the program’s parenting skills and strategies
by purchasing the parent handbook. Click here to obtain the parent handbook.
Back to top
Return to Parenting Skill-Building Programs
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