Information for Parents“I am an advocate of Healthy Respect because I believe
that you should wait for the right person and it all revolves around your
future. You need to have your standards and set goals for yourself.” “My father had told [me about abstinence] before, so I
was kind of skeptical about it. When two other people says (sic)
this they’re right too. They kind of help me figure out that
the right path is not to be having sex when you’re young.” |
The Healthy Respect Parent/Guardian Program
Healthy Respect includes a parent component that recognizes the undisputed importance of parental influence in student achievement. According to a review of research published by the Southwest Educational Development Laboratory, students with involved parents are more likely to:- Earn higher grades and test scores, and enroll in higher-level programs
- Be promoted, pass their classes and earn credits
- Attend school regularly
- Have better social skills, show improved behavior and adapt well to school
- Graduate and go on to post-secondary education
A New Wave of Evidence: The Impact of School, Family and Community Connections on Student Achievement, by Anne T. Henderson and Karen L. Mapp (Austin, TX: Southwest Educational Development Laboratory, 2002).
The Healthy Respect Parent and Guardian Program covers the following topics and is an essential ingredient to the success of the Healthy Respect student program.
- Influences and Risk factors/Protective factors and assets
for resiliency
- The peer group
- Media messages
- Identifying negative community risk factors
- Identifying positive community expectations and resources
- Identifying child and family assets
- STIs, pregnancy and sexual integrity
- Problems associated with out-of-wedlock pregnancy and STIs
- Identify increasing numbers of STIs and risks
- Modeling sexual integrity
- Parent – child communication strategies
- Understanding barriers to communication
- Learning communication techniques
- Boundary setting and expectations
- Identifying appropriate boundaries
- Dating standards and policies
- Curfews
- Refusal skills
- ATOD standard and policies
- School achievement
- Increasing self-efficacy
- Identifying appropriate boundaries
Additional workshop topics include:
- Parental Influence
- The importance of parental involvement in their child's formative years
- Why children want to know what their parents think
- ABC's of Character Development
- Helping children acquire good character traits
- Teaching children to respect themselves, and others
- Adolescent Relationships
- Understanding changing relationships in the adolescent's life
- Helping adolescents to form good friendships
- Internet & Media Safety
- Understanding the powers and dangers of the internet & media
- Anxiety in Pre-Adolescent / Adolescent Children
- Understanding the stresses the pre-teens and teens deal with on a regular basis
- Drugs, Sexuality & Violence - Reducing the Risks
- Understanding the risks that today's youth face
- Understanding risks factors & reducing these risks
- Recognizing signs of the need for intervention