We’d like to gift you with a free lesson from our full Parenting 101 course. With this free content, you’ll be better equipped to decide if our program is right for you – and you’ll start learning parenting skills right away! Throughout the course, you’ll learn skills that will benefit your family relationships. Start learning today!
One of the biggest accomplishments in life can be raising a functional, healthy human being. While raising a child certainly brings unbeatable pleasure, it also brings seemingly insurmountable obstacles, confusion, and general upset to both parties.
At Open Path, we are here to offer a helping hand to those looking for direction. This course provides a foundation to begin creating or rebuilding a loving, authentic relationship with your child. Children inherently look to parents as role models, of aspirations of their own future. Stepping up to this plate can be scary, difficult at times, and extremely rewarding when we have put forth our best effort. Enrolling in these parenting courses fortifies that effort.
Before we begin, it is important to outline what you want from this course. Make yourself a five-week plan. Expand this to five-months, and then a year. How do you want your relationship with your child to feel like in these time frames? Maybe in five weeks you want it to be easier to get along, less power struggles. In five months, you may wish to be enjoying almost all of your time spent together, each party willing to compromise even when it comes to things like chores or where the family will be spending next Saturday. In a year, maybe you want to have full trust in your child, and you want to see that trust reciprocated. Maybe you want to feel secure in your child’s choices, not needing to “hover” over playtime or when your child is visiting with friends.
Parenting is a unique experience to each person. Therefore, while some of our suggestions will work quite well, others may be impossible to implement. While we can’t suggest a quick fix to create a wonder child, our courses aim to create a meaningful relationship built on trust and respect. This is a two-way street, where trust and respect must emanate from both parent and child.
We have found one thing that works for most situations. This is a pretty fail safe solution to those times when you can’t get out of the door fast enough, and your child is begrudgingly still getting dressed, or to the high octane emotional battles you encounter with your teenager regarding driving, privacy, or an obstinate attitude.
Think two words: slow down. Let’s see this in practice.
Consider the following:
Joseph has to pick up his seven year old daughter Claire from staying at her friend’s house early this afternoon. She has a dentist appointment. He gets stuck in lunchtime rush hour and is running ten minutes late. When he arrives to get Claire, he brusquely interrupts playtime, imploring that they must leave immediately to make the appointment.
Claire picks up on his stress and begins to feel overwhelmed. She feels upset and disrespected that she was not given the opportunity to find closure in her playtime with her friend. She pouts and makes sure to move exceptionally slow while leaving.
Claire slowing things down signals to Joseph that he was pushing Claire too quickly before. He kneels to her level and touches her gently on the arm. He takes a deep breath to slow himself down to her pace.
He offers acknowledgement of Claire’s feelings, saying, “I see that you’re upset we have to leave. It’s tough having to leave when you were having such a great time.”
Claire nods, still pouting due to her loss of control in the situation.
Joseph smiles warmly, “Let’s have your friend come over to our house very soon. Do you want to invite her now or later?”
In the example above, Joseph at first acted without much mindfulness to Claire’s situation. He was running on his time, the dentist’s time, but not Claire’s time. This compounded the difficulties of an already tough transition. But, because Joseph took only a few seconds to slow down, he was able to reconnect with Claire. Claire feels just as important as the dentist appointment, despite the earlier fumble.
This connection is vital to any parent-child relationship. It allows the child to feel her emotions with authenticity, it allows the child to trust your presence, and it also builds respect for both you and the child.
Open Path’s Parenting 101 Course teaches techniques like this and more.
In addition to Parenting 101, your $4.99 fee will unlock each of our mental health education classes. You will have access to classes in: Anger Management, Co-Parenting & Divorce, Internet/Gadget Addiction, Stress and Anxiety Reduction, Drug and Alcohol Awareness, Domestic Violence Education, Healthy Relationship Building and Communication Skills.
All for just $4.99!
Open Path is an international leader in affordable psychotherapy and mental health education.
If you’re interested in learning more about your mental health and working one-on-one with a trained, licensed, therapist, we can help you get connected with someone who can see you for just $30-60 a session. Most therapists charge over $100 an hour, so these are impressive discounts.
Many of our therapists see clients online, so if you can’t find a therapist available in your community, we can probably connect you with someone who will work with you through a video enabled program like Skype.
To learn more about our affordable therapy program, click here.
Completing your course: How long will it take?
Our course is organized into easy-to-digest lessons. Each lesson takes approximately one hour to complete. Students work at different speeds, so you can go at your own pace in our courses.
If you are mandated to take weekly classes, please note that One Hour equals One Week. (This information appears on all certificates.)
Not sure if you can make it work?
Get in touch and we’ll help you assess your situation.
