Triple P program created ‘mom I always wanted’

After a successful launch last fall Fort Macleod Kids First Family Centre is holding a second Triple P workshop.
The all-day seminar Saturday, March 19 at the Fort Macleod Health Centre will once again introduce Triple P’s acclaimed positive parenting concepts.
The workshop is being facilitated by Kids First co-ordinator Susan Simpson and First Nations family support worker Tina Williams, both certified Triple P trainers.
“We encourage any parent who wants to learn more about effective parenting to come and get a taste of the Triple P program via one of our seminars,” Simpson invited. “There are 30 years of evidence that indicate that putting these basic principles into practice can make for healthy, well adjusted children, and parents that feel good about the job that they are doing.”
The session gets underway at 9 a.m. and will run to 3 p.m. There’s no cost and lunch will be provided, but parents are asked to make arrangements for child care and not bring children along.
“Some of the types of child behaviours we discuss are issues with bedtime, dealing with tantrums and whining, homework, balancing work and family life,” Simpson said. “They’re situations that most parents find themselves in at one point or another.”
The one-day seminar is followed up by four hour-long sessions in which parents are guided to put the Triple P principles into practice.
They begin to monitor their child’s behaviour, come to identify potential causes for it, and devise a parenting plan that will encourage the behaviour they want and discourage the behaviour that they don’t want, Simpson explained.
“So far I think it’s safe to say that all of the parents involved have been quite happy with the results they have achieved,” Simpson said.
Fort Macleod mom Trish Hoskin, who is now using the Triple P principles, certainly agrees.
“Susan gave me two or three Triple P suggestions on how to work on a particular issue with my daughter,” Hoskin explained. “In doing the simple, concrete and straightforward suggestions, I saw a really amazing change.”
“But it wasn’t in my daughter — it was in me and how I relate to her,” Hoskin added. “So rather than get mad about the behaviour, instead I began noticing and appreciating the good things about her. Then I felt better about her, and consequently, better about myself as a parent. I felt like a good parent, not a failure. My relationship with my daughter has become what I always wanted.”
“And as we were going through the program, my daughter started saying things like, ‘This is the kind of mom I always wanted,’ and, ‘This is the family I always wanted.’ We were all feeling the love, hokey as that sounds.”
Hoskin is sold on the program and recommends it for anyone.
“This isn’t just for problem kids,” Hoskin said. “Anyone can use it. The most significant change Triple P brought about for us is the major improvement in my relationship with my daughter. Our house is way more relaxed now too . . . now that I’m not constantly fighting with my five-year-old.”
The March 19 session will be followed by seminars in October and November.
While most seminars focus on parents with children under 12, one of the fall sessions will be for parents with teenagers.
For further information call Fort Macleod Kids First Family Centre at 403-553-5354.