A district in Hangzhou, China has recently awarded 222,000 "high-achieving" participants with a parenting certification after they've successfully completed courses in a virtual parenting school.
Established in 2020, the parenting school is an initiative of the Shangcheng District government to aid parents on how to educate, relate and communicate with their children below 15 years old. The classes are currently free of charge and divided into specific topics applicable to different age groups.
One of the classes covers sessions on handling preschool children with anger issues, while another class guides parents into teaching their older kids to develop empathy for others. Parents of teenagers also have a special course on how to deal with kids whose attitudes are changing as they enter puberty.
Family Activities and Counselling
The parenting school also offers different activities that family members could do together, especially during the height of the COVID-19 lockdowns last year. During the stay-at-home orders, the school organized virtual group meetings for families to socialize, albeit virtually. The school also offered psychological counseling to help moms and dads explain the impact of the pandemic among their kids.
Participants of the classes during the first batch were rewarded points each time they finished a module. Aside from the parenting certification, the points also gave some of the adults the distinction of being "five-star parents."
The initiative has been so well-received that the Zhejiang Education Bureau acknowledged the parenting school and commended its focus on stabilizing Chinese families. The bureau also believes that this "should be a mandatory class for all parents." However, since district officials said that this is still a voluntary class then there are no penalties nor punishments for parents who fail to finish the courses.
For its next batches, the school hopes to improve on its point system, as well as raise awareness about the classes. Shangcheng District officials are currently in talks to expand the virtual classes across the province of Zhejiang.
Shangcheng is one of 10 districts in Hangzhou and has a general population of more than 350,000 people. Described as a place of innovation, this is district, located in the south central area, is quite small compared to the other locations but it has an above-average quality of life than other urbanized areas of the Chinese city.
Are Parenting Classes Effective?
Despite its positive outcome, naysayers of the school said that parenting classes cannot be effective because there is no exact science or methodology to parenting. However, a school in Connecticut believes that there are valuable lessons to learn from participating in a parenting class because moms and dads will be able to update themselves on the latest findings, discoveries, studies and trends on raising kids.
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The classes are also designed to boost parental involvement and guide mothers and fathers on how to effectively engage their kids, so that they could raise happier, stable and well-rounded children. Parents can also learn to develop a style that will be suitable to their different personalities of their kids. For new parents, joining a class improves their confidence in handling different situations.
