New booklet gives parents a helping hand with raising children




New booklet gives parents a
helping hand with raising children


The National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) is offering a new booklet to help parents tackle the day-to-day challenges of raising children.


"Adventures in Parenting: How Responding, Preventing, Monitoring, Mentoring, and Modeling Can Help You be a Successful Parent" offers parenting tools that can be used with children of any age.


"Parenting is the most important job in the world, but it can also be the toughest," said Duane Alexander, MD, director of the NICHD. "Adventures in Parenting explains what we’ve learned from decades of parenting research. It describes the findings on what works, shows parents how to use this information in their own lives, and gives them the tools they need to help build strong relationships with their children."


The easy-to-read booklet draws on years of scientific research to give parents strategies for parenting, as well as insights from parenting experts. It includes stories of how some people have used the booklet’s techniques in their day-to-day activities in parenting children from birth through the teen years.


"Adventures in Parenting isn’t a one-size-fits-all formula; it’s so much more," noted Sharon L. Ramey, Ph.D., an NICHD researcher and founding director of the Civitan International Research Center at the University of Alabama at Birmingham.


"It gives people a framework for making decisions based on scientific research. Parents, step-parents, grandparents anyone who cares for children-can benefit from this booklet and will find value in the information it provides."


Dr. Ramey co-chaired the 1999 parenting conference sponsored by the NICHD and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, which served as the basis for Adventures in Parenting.


The Adventures in Parenting booklet encourages parents and others involved in raising children to use an approach called "RPM3." RPM3 involves responding to your children in an appropriate manner, preventing risky behavior or problems before they arise, monitoring your child’s contact with his or her surrounding world, mentoring your child to support and encourage desired behavior, and modeling your own behavior to provide a consistent and positive example.


Adventures in Parenting is available free-of-charge by calling the NICHD Information Resource Center at (800) 370-2943. It’s also available online at www.nichd.nih.gov.


The NICHD is part of the National Institutes of Health, an arm of the federal government. The NICHD sponsors research on development before and after birth; maternal, child, and family health; reproductive biology; population issues; and medical rehabilitation.



Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *