Social workers create parenting cards to improve understanding, behaviours
Published:Tuesday | December 26, 2023 | 12:07 AMAsha Wilks/Gleaner Writer
Social worker Rhonda Morrison, who has led multiple parenting education sessions, has teamed up with her colleagues Kai Matthews-Mowatt and Keisha Smith to collaborate on the creation of parenting cards.
These cards are scheduled to be launched in the first quarter of 2024.
The cards, which will be titled ‘You, Me, Us’, are designed to assist parents and their children to engage in candid and meaningful conversations regarding subjects that they might not normally talk about.
“For parenting to be effective, parents need to have a healthy relationship with their child or children. Adolescence is the period of transition from childhood to adulthood. This phase is equated with puberty and maturation. In the adolescent stage, there might be a disconnect between parent and child, as the child begins to discover their self,” Morrison told The Gleaner.
She continued that, as according to Erikson’s stages of psychosocial development, during adolescence, a child experiences an identity versus role confusion phase where the central focus is on discovering “who am I?”
The use of the parenting cards, she said, is intended to develop stronger bonds between parent and child and to bridge the gap of “who am I?” and “Who are you?”
Criticism and judgement
“For this engagement between parent and child to be effective, a “brave space” must be created and cultivated. A brave space is an environment in which each person can share their views and speak freely without the possibility of criticism and judgement,” Morrison stated.
She explained that some questions for one to consider before moving forward included, “Am I open and ready to accept the reality that my child and I may not share the same perspective on several issues?”; “What will I do with this information after receiving it?”; and “Am I ready to be open and honest with my children as I expect them to be with me?”
Morrison stated that the group is currently in dialogue with two potential partners to launch the programme.
Smith, another partner in the development of this tool, explained that she firmly believed “parents are the cause of a lot of the behaviour issues that children face, which then is a ripple effect into what we see in society today”.
According to Smith, parents generally held the belief that introducing certain conversation topics to their children at an early age may overexpose them, placing them in situations where they could be abused or subjected to other negative things.
She remarked that this practice needs to be addressed and that it was time to abandon the mentality of “sweeping things under the carpet”.
The questions on the cards are directed to both the parent and child and are to be used in a “simple, game-like way”, Smith said, noting that it would encourage engagement.
Critical period
She added that it will encourage family time between parents and their children which is a critical period in a child’s life, “if it’s even half an hour ... [as] it helps to build rapport.
“The hope is that it will not only help to build relationships, but those children will then pass on [the knowledge] to friends – because you know children talk – ‘that this is what I discussed with my mother’ and [overall] positive things that they can share and the mindset of these children ... will start to change,” she explained.
It is anticipated that the use of the cards – which target children aged 12 and over – that have already been created and are currently being finalised to be printed, will help parents and their child to build healthier relationships.
“We often parent how we were parented, that’s just how it works and even though a lot of us are educated and you’d think education will open your mindset to exposure and experience when it come on to certain things, we are still stuck in how we were parented,” Smith said.
She reinforced the need for parents to have conversations with their children so that they can gain a better understanding of the world around them. Smith stated that if more parents were able to do this, there would be a significant decrease in violence, miscommunication, fights and misunderstanding among youths.
“We can only start from somewhere and impact one at a time and hope that it will transcend into others and will have some change over time,” Smith said.