Women and Children Growing Together in a New Country

Order form (Note: Adobe Acrobat Reader is required to view the order form. If you do not have it installed on your computer download it now and then install it.) Summary of Contents		Women and Children Growing Together in a New Country is a community education program for women of non-English speaking ackground.  It focuses on exploring challenges facing women as parents of 5-12 years in a new culture. Price: $50 per copy of manual. To obtain a copy of Women and Children Growing Together in a New Country manual please complete and send the order form to: Helen Tourtouras, Area BCE Co-ordinator Bankstown Central Community Health Centre Level 4, Compass Centre Fetherstone Street, Bankstown NSW 2200 Phone No: (02) 9780 2801   Fax No: (02) 9780 2888
Summary of Contents: INTRODUCTION Women and children growing together in a new country deals with the constantly changing interaction between women and children growing together in a new country.  It examines the normal range of experiences women will go through as a parent and explores the challenges facing women as parents in a new culture.  It affirms women's knowledge and skills, their capacity to manage change, and the importance of their personal and cultural values. This course focuses on women's relationships to children aged five to twelve years.   Children in this age group start to relate to the world outside the family and begin to incorporate values and beliefs that may be challenging to some of its members.  For this reason, they need an environment where their worth as people, their cultural values, and the rules and structures that they are incorporating are constantly affirmed. GOALS The goals of this program are to enable women of non English speaking background to explore opportunities for growth in new directions so that they can all be full participants in life in their new country. OBJECTIVES By the end of the program, women will be able to: Acknowledge how their definition of parenting is influenced by their own upbringing and cultural expectations. Explore different ways of parenting and the pressures they may experience as parents Recognise the need to establish effective rules to build positive self esteem in children Practice good communication skills Maintain and extend viable support networks Explore ways of establishing links with support services and working together with the school system. CONTENTS Session 1 In this session we talked about what parenting was for us; we remembered important people in our life and the qualities we valued in them. We also had a look at our culture and what it meant to be a parent in our country of origin Session 2 In this session we explored the different pressures we experience as parents, whether they come from our own expectations or from the society we now live in. We also looked at different ways of being a parent and the choices we may have in being a more effective one. We talked about what our children need to learn in order to grow up successfully and how we can help that process. Session 3 This session dealt with effective rules, that is rules that work. We discussed our ideas about discipline and the different ways of teaching appropriate behaviour. We also talked about the need for positive self -esteem in children. Session 4 In this session we raised our awareness of things that might block communication and looked at ways of sending more positive messages. We also practised some listening skills to maintain good communication. Session 5 In this session we learned that trying to control personal stress can help us and our children to feel safe. Building our self-esteem and maintaining and extending a good support network can help us to be calm and effective parents. Session 6 In this session we looked at making links with services and systems like schools and explored ways of being partners with them.