Would you go to a parenting course?

[parentstogether]

Have name changed but regular MNer. I’m a social worker trained in various parenting courses. These are attachment and relationship focused, not supernanny time out type stuff.

I’m interested in normalising the idea that being a parent is hard and that we all need support; that we all struggle at times and all have things to learn. Id like us all to see parenting courses as not just for families who have had cause to come into contact with social work, or meaning someone is failing in some way. I’m thinking about setting up group courses based helping parents improve their relationship with their kids and tune in to what might be going on for them.

Would you consider attending a course like this? What would you consider paying/ expect to pay for an 8 week block? Would you want to make 2hrs space per week for this? Ideally I’d like to have a model where those who can pay, pay, and people who couldn’t, be referred through gps and other services, but I need to secure funding.

Id like to have groups for different ages, sexes, abilities, nationalities etc, if this was needed by the community I’ll work in.

I had to do two to tick boxes when my teen was struggling.
First one was parenting for literal idiots. Nothing I hadn't already tried many many times over many years.

Second one was non violent resistance. It basically tells you to ignore all the old parenting advice as it won't work for your kid. Still quite a lot of parent blaming and no practical help. I did end up getting DLA as the course leader referred my teen for more support after that, cold hard cash helped more than the courses.

I may be wrong and this may be only how I feel personally, but I feel there’s a stigma attached to them. Like if you’ve had to go on a parenting course you’ve done something wrong, are failing as a parent, or are just a bit rubbish at being a parent. If I did go on one I can’t imagine admitting to any of my family & friends that I did. I’d feel ashamed. If I’m being really honest I’d feel a bit like “who are you to tell me how to parent my own child? You know nothing about us. I know what’s best for them and I’ll parent however I see fit thank you very much!” But then again I only have one DD and she’s a dream. If I had kids with additional needs or I was really struggling with their behaviour I’d definitely consider it. I’d still be uncomfortable with telling people about it though. Just the name “parenting course” evokes the idea that you’re a failure to me

I did when going through the family court system. I had a degree in education at this point and was working as a teacher so was considered perfect to capable if educating and taking care of 32 children on alone and there was no question of my parenting ever being anything other than it should have been. No allegations from either party if the other being anything other than a good parent. I did it so I looked like I wasn’t awkward (it was recommended to both parties when in mediation and CAFCASS were involved which I believe was compulsory and again no issues around either parents conduct and was not court ordered) it was the biggest waste of my time ever. I was there with people that had clearly been ordered to do it, one man has a t-shirt on that said cocaine and caviar on the front and it was basically people interrupting the ‘trainer’ and telling her how awful their exes were. It went in all day and I learnt nothing (also had to take a day unpaid) I am still livid that I was made to feel that I should do it so as to look like I complied with everything. All because I wanted a court order for 50:50 contact, as in I wanted set days in writing as my ex was being a bit awkward. I wasn’t getting legal aid or anything, but that I’m not sure that’s relevant. No idea if the ex did the course, suspect not and suspect no one gave a shit because I wasn’t actually complaining about his parenting in any way

Would I go on one? No if you want the short answer.

Who's your target market, OP? As a social worker you must be aware that there's already a huge stigma around parenting courses/classes as there is. Going back a few years now but wasnt there a government scheme for everyone to be offered a voucher for a free parenting course? I believe the uptake was very low. Partly because of the use of the phrase 'parenting course' which carries an automatic assumption that people are bad parents and the government is going to fix them. You'll also be aware that the evidence base for some of the most popular ones is questionable at best, outdated and not based on UK parenting standards.

I've got a child with complex additional needs. Its a genetic disorder but in day to day life my child's essentially severely PDA autistic, adhd and has complex challenging behaviours. The automatic assumption as soon as you mention that combination is that my child's needs are purely as a result of poor parenting. In my local authority it seems like the Earlybird Plus course is the answer to everything. Even though I've been doing this 10+ years and have a professional background in SEND I still get people trying to send me on an introduction to autism course (which is what the EB+ is) all the time. Somehow I dont think I'm going to get much out of a course that promises behaviour 'tips and advice' when I'm at the stage of calling the Police because of my child's behaviours and have also appeared in A&E more than once (legitimately!!) because I've been attacked. The only thing I have been successful in is getting my LA to stop calling them (publicly at least) parenting courses and call them workshops instead.

The market is also oversaturated with just about anyone and everyone calling themselves a 'sleep consultant', 'behaviour consultant' and just about anything else you can think of. If you had a USP you might be more successful but based on your OP I don't think you'd have much luck and you definitely wouldnt have much luck getting to the people who would benefit the most.

This is a prime example of why parents don't want to do parenting courses. All too often the people who run them are just plain judgy and most of us with send children can't be bloody arsed with it anymore. So we save our very limited and valuable time for people who actually understand our challenges and support us properly.

People who don't live with disabled family members have no idea how difficult day to day life can be. Child has a meltdown, therefore your whole day is delayed/pushed back because you have to, you know, parent and deal with it. School calls you to collect your child because they've unlawfully excluded them again, therefore you can't make it at all today because you're doing a two hour round trip to collect them from the specialist school they attend in the next county because your county doesn't have a suitable school. Social services won't provide support so you have no babysitters or respite to attend anything alone, so do your best by going online but get criticised because your child is there even though you've no other option and are literally doing your best. Or your child has no suitable education in place so isn't even in an education setting because the LA are failing in their statutory duties, again. But of course it's just us being rubbish parents who cba to turn up on time or make our disabled children sit in silence whilst we're there online.

No, sorry, I found the NCT course patronising and a waste of money other than to meet other mums for which it was great, and I don’t even engage with the health visitors as again I’ve found it pretty useless. Cannot imagine paying for a parenting course unless I had a child with very specific needs, and no one I know would pay for this either. Judging by my insta feed/algorithm everyone is some kind of parenting expert these days, I block the endless posts that come up as I find them trite and annoying. Obviously there’s a market for it online but I doubt you would get people willing to pay and turn up in person unless there is a very unique selling point.

No I wouldn't.

I'm afraid that based on my interactions so far with the health visiting service I would assume that it would mean paying for someone to suggest things that anyone actually motivated to parent well had already tried, which I wouldn't be up for.

When I asked for support with my older DS's behaviour, they suggested: giving him countdowns to transitions, visual timetables, creating a safe space with stress toys for him to express his feelings, and offering him choices to essentially try to manipulate his behaviour. All reasonable, but I'd been trying all that for several years already (because I know how to Google...) with limited success, which is why I was asking for support! However, they just kept repeating the same things. The choices thing especially frustrated me - he was 4 and not daft - he'd just say he didn't want to do either option and carry on his merry way. Funnily enough they had no suggestions for how to handle a child who says 'neither thanks'.

I probably would.
I struggle with interaction with most people to be honest and that's including DD.
I would love to learn some new play methods and etc.
How much? Not sure. £20 a week?

I've done 3 courses. 2 via the primary school, one via social services.
I really enjoyed them as the groups were friendly and it would good to be able to share the not so great parts of parenthood and give each other support.
They were all free courses though.
If I'd had to have paid I unlikely would have been able to afford it.

I’d consider it, if we had an issue we were struggling with. I paid for a hypnobirthing course and an infant first aid course to equip me with skills after all. Why not.

A charity near us runs courses for parents referred (often very young parents, or those with difficult family backgrounds etc who may not have had functional family life modelled to them). I often think that if they opened it up to those who choose to go as paid attendees they could likely use the money earned to support more of those who can’t pay.

I have done ones for parents of children with autism and found them useful (although less useful than I would've a year previously as inexplicably you could only be referred after your child was diagnosed and by that point I'd already done a lot of reading up), but not sure I'd get much out of a generic one. There are some done through the school that I attend, or not, depending on if the particular issue is relevant to me. None have been useful enough I'd pay to attend.

Of course and went on several to jump through hoops to get my child access ri the learning disability nurses in our area. We did triple P and early birds course and one run by National Autistic society.

I'm happy with the concept. As a parent of children with SEN I've found attending a parenting course is the gateway to being able to access specialist support, you get asked to attend first. Often it's the only support offered. 🙄

Your standard parenting course isn't going to help my SEN children though, it'll just make me feel shit.

The ones I've been on have been £10 for the course, per parent, for a 10 week course of 1 hour a week online. That was hard to find time for. In person would be impossible.

Oh and I've done a brilliant one through school for parents of children with suspected SEN. Good it wasn't just for those with a diagnosis. It was free, and online.

There’s a course being offered by the school, which I’ll be signing up for. I’ve been happy to get good advice from children’s health services, playschool, school etc… It all adds to my parenting skills. I’ve never read any baby books, though.

I know it's taboo to say this on MN, but my parents were good parents and I took advice from them, at least for the early years.Didn't feel the need to take advice from anyone else. I don't regret it.

I run parenting courses as part of my work and they groups of 4/6 and normally only mums - dads are welcome but seldom attend.

The courses are free to access and are run as part of our wider family support program. People are mostly referred by social services, schools and GPs. It’s hard getting them to come together as a group but most enjoy it when they do.

We did try running a paid for course with no referrals but didn’t get anyone attending.

Of course not. I would rather spend the money doing something with my children!
I have also worked full-time since my children were tiny, between appointments and general issues with reliable childcare I certainly couldn't have asked for 2 hours per week to swan off to a none mandatory course.
Most parents are doing a decent job of raising children without outside interference so don't need a course, those that do need it wouldn't attend (especially if they had to pay) so it would be pointless.

I have been on parenting course that I was referred on by TAC.

Tbh although it was well meaning it was absolutely useless for me as a parent of one very volatile, autistic/adhd teenage ds.

ime these parenting courses are aimed at neurotypical teens that have the usual teenage angst and wanted to apply methods that really doesn’t work for children like my ds who, at the time, was violent, aggressive and really struggling with his mental health.

Also they assumed I wasn’t working and the course was difficult to attend in the day

if i didn’t attend TAC told me I would be escalated to social services.

i am very mistrustful of parenting courses.

thankfully ds had a better outcome as I got support elsewhere

We went when DD was assessed for ADHD and found it helpful as it was very much a "you will find that normal methods don't work for ADHD and this is why and these are things you can try instead". We incorporated plenty of ideas into DD's parenting and found it sucessful.

But - that was her and us. There were around 20 parents in the course, most had a variety of needs and even with the common factor of ASD/ADHD, not all things worked for each child.

So, a general parenting course won't be more help then what already plenty of podcasts, magazines, books and other media can provide.

Yes, people use dog training but the big difference is that you attend with your puppy, you aren't getting theory and do things at home. So it can't be compared.

If there was a specific issue I needed to navigate, then yes. Basically anything to meet ds' needs.

So far I've got him to 17, cheerful, doing ok in school, knows what he wants so I haven't needed it, but if he has significant struggles in the future, yes. Having got him this far, I wouldn't skimp over £150, if it helped.

I’m a former foster carer and did loads of courses when fostering (attachment, victimisation, criminalisation, SN, etc). They were quite specialised though and I did find them helpful.

I did some specialised courses around autism and anxiety when my DD was diagnosed with both (through my local college) which I found helpful so maybe more specialist stuff rather than general parenting courses is the way to go

No. But then I am not a "joiner". I never did mother and baby groups, or God forbid NCT. I just talked with DM or DMIL, met a few other mothers through soft play etc, then went back to work and had work friends.

But no, I don't like a lot of advice. I think it can be patronising or infantilising, and quite often downright wrong.

I would consider it. The money isn't the biggest problem tbh, it's finding 2 hrs child-free and work-free time per week. Unfortunately time isn't something that you can always just "make".