Wednesday, September 06, 2000
Parenting sessions teach families to cope
13-week program emphasizes cultural, ethnic awareness
By Marie McCain
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Joyce remembers Oct. 4, 1998, as if it were yesterday.
Her husband of 18 years had just threatened her for the umpteenth time. But in this instance, the threat left on her voice mail included their two children. After he killed them, he said that he would kill himself.
She had better come home, he warned. Instead, Joyce took her children and fled to a friend's home in Clifton. Her husband searched the area all night before locating his wife's car on a side street.
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INFORMATION
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Raising Great Kids is free to Cincinnati residents. Participants can take the 13-week course more than once. It consists of one three-hour class per week. The next session will begin at the end of this month.
Participants do not have to be parents. Anyone who wants to become a parent or is interested in reducing abuse within the family is welcome. Day care and bus tokens are provided if needed.
For information, call 345-8545.
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Joyce says her husband opened the car's hood and began ripping out parts. The police were called and he was charged with domestic violence and taken to jail.
“I knew things had to change,” she says. “If he ever got out of jail, he'd hurt me more and he'd do something to the kids. He had mentally, verbally and physically abused us already.”
Now, two years, a divorce and a restraining order later, Joyce is learning how to end the cycle of violence for her and two children, thanks to a Cincinnati-based program.
Tuesday night she was among the latest “graduates” from Raising Great Kids, a free 13-week parenting program offered by Family Service of the Cincinnati Area, a not-for-profit agency that provides counseling and assistance to individuals and families.
Joyce, who requested that her last name not be used, says the program taught her how to talk to her now 14-year-old son and help him with the anger he feels toward his father. She has also found a way to teach her 15-year-old daughter that healthy relationships don't revolve around violence.
“I know now that there are different ways to discipline a child, and I've learned how to talk to my kids and point out their good qualities,” she says.
The program, which has graduated nearly 800 parents and children since it began in 1997, focuses on cultural and ethnic awareness and suggests that the participants discover their backgrounds as a way of getting to know themselves.
“Our main goal is to inform and encourage families,” says Heather Schwantes, a program co-facilitator who with colleague Tasha Fleming leads weekly sessions at Walnut Hills Baptist Church on Kemper Lane.
“This is not a support group,” Ms. Schwantes says. “We are teaching people methods that can be practiced and learned.
“They bond through their spiritual, ethnic and cultural roots. It's inspirational. We do a lot of sharing with each other and we teach how to make major life changes.”
For 22-year-old Mackenzie Clayton, a single mother of three children under age 4, the classes have become a way of life that she isn't ready to give up.
“I've signed up for another 13-week session,” she says.
Two years ago, she says, she felt as though raising her family was a chore. Now she knows it is a blessing.
“I never wanted to treat my kids the way I was treated,” she says. “Most parents think they know how to do a good job (raising their kids) but many don't. They don't know how to talk to their kids. They talk to a 3- or 4-year-old like he's 7 or 8. You can't do that.
“I wanted to learn how to be more patient. I wanted to learn how to be a better mother.”
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