Latinos

Diversity within cultural diversity:
special challenges, special opportunities

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. It was written by Drs. Lupita Montoya Tannatt and Kerby T. Alvy.

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.

All skills are taught with an awareness of the potential cultural conflicts that might emerge from their use and with 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. 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.