Term four courses 2016

Term four courses 2016

I saw Christmas decorations up in a shop recently. Somehow, in our bid to claim longer days by turning the clock forward an hour we speed up the momentum on the last three months of the year! Now the last term of the school year is upon us and at Napier Family Centre we are offering two free courses in term four – one for parents and one for young people: Positive Parenting and Emerge.

Positive Parenting suits parents and caregivers of younger children and the six weekly sessions explores positive responses to child behaviour management. Parents express a desire to learn how to communicate as a whole family. The participants say afterwards that they have learnt new strategies, feel more confident about reinforcing the values they want for their family life, have gained insight into their child’s thoughts and have a better understanding of the impact of their actions. Over the six weeks the group feel relaxed in the company of people going through similar problems and they share fun and laughter in their learning together. Every group is representative of real families in today’s society being one parent, two-parent, step-parent, co-parent, blended, whāngai, grandparent, foster or caregiver. The support of the group is one of the strengths of this course and our facilitators are experienced and qualified family support workers.

Emerge is a course for boys and girls aged 10yrs – 12yrs run in eight weekly sessions. The topics of interest to the pre-teen age-group are consistently about developing of skills and social awareness about handling bullying, building self-confidence, making friends, exploring feelings, managing anger and experiencing a fun group setting. The course is activities-based and allows for understanding individuality as well as teamwork and friendship. Healthy living is a specific topic as this age group are becoming more independent from parents in their choices. Feelings and emotions such as anger are explored in-depth. These serious topics are managed by the facilitators in a safe way by playing games, having fun and using the positive energy of the children’s creativity. All our courses are evaluated by the participants and the children enjoy the games and rate the course as fun as well as stating that it was good to talk about feelings and anger.  The parents/caregivers see positive changes in the children’s confidence and social skills over the eight weeks.

Positive Parenting starts 20 October and Emerge starts 18 October. They are free courses but registration is essential. To find out more about the courses check out www.napierfamilycentre.org.nz or contact the office ph 843 7280.