Voices of Parents Forum Newsletter

Earlier this year my daughter, Fumani Sithole, was given an assignment to come up with a speech to deliver at her school. I saw this as opportunity to teach my daughter to take care of our planet. Knowing that her favorite water animal is a dolphin, my daughter and I landed on a topic which sought to address the challenges of plastic in our oceans.

In my current work as participant coordinator for a health research project in Boston, I met Parents Forum founder Eve Sullivan – one of our participants – when she called in to the project. Eve and I spoke enthusiastically about experiences we have each had serving parents, children and families. She invited me to consider joining the Parents Forum board. Now, starting as a volunteer, over the next two months I am taking the lead on Love and Luck, the program’s annual fundraiser!

Happy Respect for Parents Day! Parents Forum certainly plays an important part in promoting this worthy social value. I took this snapshot on Saturday at an outstanding community garden called Cloudesley which I visited for a meeting of a small charity I support. It was the trustees’ first opportunity for an in-person meeting in a long while, after which we shared a potluck picnic sitting outside the room where we held our meeting. It was altogether delightful.

When I joined Parents Forum three years ago to create this newsletter — in the very early days of the pandemic — I was not expecting to make life-long friends through only an online connection. My initial volunteering became a learning process that significantly broadened my horizons and increased my network. I gradually realized that Parents Forum helps not only parents, but also my generation, those of us taking our first steps to independent adult life.

Parents Forum has been a part of my life for nearly 20 years. I met the founder while I was living in Cambridge, Mass., became involved in the program and at first used the insights it gave me to improve communication with my mother. Over the years these insights helped me build good relationships with my children. Today, my husband and I live in Switzerland with our two children, now 15 and 17...

A few months ago, my life changed drastically. I decided to join my husband in one of the most promising job adventures he could have. After a lot of talking and crying, we decided to leave home and stay in the U.S. for at least a year. We had never dreamed of leaving Chile. We love our country and its people. Letting go of my family, job and friends—while finishing my Ph.D.—was a huge step.

I am grateful to be invited to contribute to this Voices newsletter. I encountered Parents Forum through the Collaborative for Healthy Parenting in Primary Care at the National Academy of Medicine, a professional workgroup that the program founder and I belong to. Eve and I have worked on a paper together and are planning a program evaluation to validate the Parents Forum model.

These past few years have not been easy for families, as the pandemic brought challenges that in many ways divided families instead of uniting them. Parents struggled to find ways to connect with and support their children. I am thrilled to join Parents Forum as the new board chair to help lead an organization that prides itself on building up families and helping parents be the best that they...

To be able to communicate effectively is very important. When I came to the United States at the age of 20, an immigrant from Syria, I experienced a huge barrier in communicating with others. Where I was raised, I was an outspoken and active student and did public speaking. When I came to the US, both the language barrier and culture barrier I faced made me hesitant to speak up...

Parents across the country are very concerned about how the pandemic is affecting student learning and we don’t want to return to “normal.” We want to see bold changes in how our kids are educated. We know that many school district leaders and school boards are struggling to find effective solutions to address the interruptions and gaps in teaching and learning that the COVID-19 pandemic has...

Two women from the Association for Psychological Aid, Research and Training in Algiers are leading a team to implement Parents Forum at their counseling center. The project is supported by a grant from the Middle East Partnership Initiative through the US Embassy in Algiers. The team trained via Zoom with founder Eve Sullivan and director Djamel Bekkai and have been translating the workshop...

Parents Forum has partnered with The Confess Project to bridge the gap between underserved communities and access to mental health services and parenting resources. We're taking a stand against inter-generational trauma and helping break the cycles of abuse and violence that torment our communities and contribute to negative outcomes for Black men, boys, and their families.

The last several months Parents Forum board and volunteers have been working with a team from Empower Success Corps to refine and clarify our program messages. A key change—small but significant—is making it clear that we work with local organizations to reach parents, rather than ourselves serving parents directly. Here is our updated mission statement: Our mission is to foster caring, honest...

‘You can lead a horse to water but you can’t make him drink.’ I had heard that, but not until becoming a psychotherapist, did I really understand what that meant. Motivational interviewing is very popular now in therapy, coming out of extensive use in treating individuals with substance use and abuse disorders. It seeks to get the client’s buy-in right from the start of treatment. Essentially it...

It’s the second year of beginning our back-to-school edition with the words, “This is a year like no other!” Parents, during the past year your brave children faced everything that we hope to help them avoid: interruptions, inconsistency, unpredictability, fear and loneliness.  Yet they have shown us how strong and resilient they are --learning to do what would have been inconceivable just...

Parents have a critical role in helping children of all ages cope with climate change. Parents of young children can support meaningful engagement with climate change by spending time in parks, growing herbs, or reusing household items. Parents can also encourage them to express their concerns about the environment through conversation, crafts or family-friendly climate events. Parents of older...

For over one year the world has known nothing but pain, agony and distress as COVID-19 hit where it hurts most: human life. At the center of this pain lies an institution that has sheltered generations, the family, as it lays the foundation for our nations and holds societies together.

As parents, we want to keep our children safe and, at the same time, to foster their independence as they grow to adulthood. Reconciling these competing interests is especially challenging when it comes to internet use. As an IT professional, I deal daily with network security issues, but I write this as the father of two grammar-school-age kids. I want to suggest a couple of strategies you can...

As we wake up to the beauties of spring and the promise of a better year to come, with the development and distribution of COVID-19 vaccines, we also have the continuing nightmare of gun violence and racial unrest all across America. It is so timely that Parents Forum is available, offering all parents guidance and help with difficult situations in families and ways to support to each other.

During this global pandemic, it is critical that the family system and network remain the support agent for our parents and their children. It will take all of us to ensure that our families are safe. We must work together as a community not only to survive but thrive once we come out of this COVID-19 Pandemic.

What better way to launch our Love and Luck initiative than by making this month’s ‘Voices of Parents Forum’ a valentine to our partners in Youngstown, Ohio! First, a big ❤ to Jamael Tito Brown, the Mayor of Youngstown, who invited us to create a Parents Forum chapter in his city. Next, another to ❤❤ Professor Patrick O’Leary and his colleagues at Youngstown State University’s...

When I chose the theme for this issue — contributions from parenting educators — I had no idea how relevant it would be in light of the events of January 6th in Washington DC. The behavior of all involved in that travesty of civic participation has to relate, if very remotely, to parental failure. Yes, I confess to seeing just about every social ill as a sign of the crying need for better...

To counter the terrible, awful, non-stop pandemic news, we asked you to share some happy stories. The first to come in was from one of our advisors. She wrote… “Despite the challenges in 2020, there have been important global milestones for parenting support. In 2020, the World Health Organization, introduced strong global recommendations to Health Ministries to integrate parenting services in...

Pediatricians and others — family medicine physicians, nurse practitioners, physician assistants, and others working in primary care settings — have an incredibly valuable opportunity to assist, support, and educate parents on many different issues facing them. Often, that help is offered during regular checkups, as you may well remember.