Parents As Teachers: Giving Your Child A Head Start

I’ve invited Sue Stepleton of Parents as Teachers. Sue is the president and CEO of Parents As Teachers, a national organization that has actually gone global—they are doing quite a bit of work all around the world—so she’s got some interesting things to talk to us about parenting.

 

Sue is the president and CEO of Parents as Teachers, a national organization that’s doing quite a bit to not only support the work of moms and dads, but also to ensure that children have an opportunity to realize their full potential. Hi, Sue, welcome to the show!

 

SS: Hi Kemi, thank you very much.

 

RM: It’s great to have you. Now Sue, what exactly is the mission of Parents as Teachers?

 

SS: Our mission, Kemi, is that all children will learn, grow, and develop to realize their full potential. Those are the words of our vision statement, and when I say them, I always emphasize “all children”—across the socioeconomic spectrum, across demographics, all children will have equal chance to do well in school and do well in life.

 

RM: That’s fantastic! And how did your organization start?

 

SS: Parents as Teachers started about 25 years ago with, as often happens, several brilliant and dedicated individuals at the same time in the right place with the same idea. Now-Senator Kitt Bond was governor of the state of Missouri at the time. There was a visionary early-childhood person who was concerned about children not all starting school with an equal opportunity to learn or equally well-prepared and a number of individuals who decided to capitalize on the fact that school success depends not on what happens when children enter kindergarten, but on really what happens during pregnancy and during those first few years, before school systems really started thinking about children. It also capitalized on the idea that parents are the most important individuals for their children and are in the very best position—if they are well-informed and well-supported—to get their kids ready for life-long learning.

 

RM: It was successful in the state of Missouri. Has it been adopted in all 50 states?

 

SS: Yes, in different ways. There were initially four very successful pilot projects that got a lot of national attention. It was the time when the country was just beginning to really get interested in brain development, neuroscience, and early learning. So the idea, once it was firmly rooted in Missouri, did spread in a variety of different ways. Some of your listeners, Kemi, will be interested in knowing that they might be less familiar with the term Parents as Teachers in their state because it is implemented in a variety of different ways in different states. Yes, it is growing. It has shown itself to be very flexible and very adaptable with a wide variety of families. So it has transplanted very well in a number of different settings, and actually, eight countries outside the US as well.

SS: Initially, not surprisingly, they were all English-speaking countries: the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand and Canada. More recently, a small program that has just started in Mexico—all of our materials are translated into Spanish, so that was a logical place. But the larger exports are actually in China and Germany, and they are two very different settings.

 

In China, there is a growing middle class with a high interest in learning as much as they can about the best scientific thinking about raising children. We are affiliated with an organization that is trying to develop parenting information across the country.

 

In Germany—this is our most recent addition—we’re actually working with the city of Nuremburg, in Southern Germany, where they are struggling with many of the same issues that go on in urban areas in the United States, namely lots of new immigrant families–—in that case, from the Middle East and Russia. They are trying to get those children ready to attend German schools and do well. So we are working there with them to do the same thing we are doing with American children. So it’s very interesting and it’s wonderful learning across the globe, really, about different views on parenting, but also the things we share in common.

 

RM: Wow, now that is what you call a successful model. … I have been talking to Sue Stepleton, the president and CEO of Parents as Teachers, a national organization that’s actually having a global impact. Now Sue, I remember reading in some of the organizational literature that Parents as Teachers has a healthy respect for traditions and culture. Do you mind sharing a bit more about this? What are some of the ways you’ve seen culture impact parenting?

 

SS: That’s a great question. Clearly, parenting and child-rearing is one of the most fundamental realities in every culture, no matter what. It’s steeped in tradition and custom and I think the finding that there are successful parenting practices in every culture started our journey to meld together the best scientific information about organic brain development and the things that science tells us about parenting with the things that individual cultures hold dear and important. We are the purveyors of the science, if you will, but it is incumbent upon us to recognize, understand, appreciate, celebrate the cultures with whom we work.

 

Of course, these days, the demographics of the United States, at this point I think, are hugely exciting. It is such a richness to watch, really even in the parts of the country where it is newer to have immigrant families, to watch those very new families move into mainstream culture, to also celebrate and learn from African American families, Native American families, Latino families—the not-new immigrants, necessarily at all—but the fabric of the United States.

 

It is very exciting to be in a position of trying to say, “We can add scientific information, but what can we learn and how can we be the vehicle to share the richness of parenting traditions and parenting cultures.”

 

One beautiful example that I love: We had a visit from the person who is head of our programs in New Zealand a couple of years ago. She is a Maori herself, an indigenous New Zealander. When she stood before our international conference to give her remarks, there were many Native American parent-educators in the audience; there were Alaskan natives in the audience. Her greeting about the importance of land and ancestors and tradition struck such a beautiful chord of similarity among those particular families who were represented and a beautiful learning to those of us who come from other cultures. So it’s a real privilege to be in that position and it’s a responsibility we take very seriously. We are in a position to say, “There doesn’t have to be bias between cultures. There must be a richness and sharing among cultures.”

 

RM: What a fantastic organization… you’re certainly to be applauded for that. That’s great! I’m sure our listeners really appreciate that.

 

SS: Great, thank you.

 

RM: Now Sue, what types of support or information can Parents as Teachers provide our moms and dads?

 

SS: It really is a range of things. I’ve mentioned several times we work with neuroscientists and nutritionists and medical doctors and education specialists and child development specialists. We work with the information they can provide, but we are trying to be the vehicle to translate that information for parents. At whatever level they are ready to be parents, informed about being parents, secure in their parenting, or whatever particular challenges they may have. It’s not at all unusual—particularly in Missouri, where Parents as Teachers is very widespread throughout every school district—my own Internist happened to be a parent in the program and she tells me, “I know all the science, but I don’t really know how to play with my child”, so we bring that kind of value.

 

In areas where perhaps there is a concentration of teenage parents, we are bringing a very different kind of thing there; we’re bringing information that may be quite basic.

 

One of the things we are trying to do across the board is affirm the good parenting that most folks are doing out of their own instinct and out of their own background, whatever that is. All parents, I hear this almost inevitably from the best-educated to the youngest and least-experienced, the statement that “I didn’t know how to be a parent, I was scared to death, I was bringing this child home from the hospital and didn’t know what to do.” That seems to be a common feeling, particularly if Grandma and Grandpa are not close by, as they frequently are not these days. To have someone come into the family and say, “You’re doing a great job; I love how you’re talking to your baby all the time. Look at how your baby cuddles up against you—that means you’re doing just the right thing to form a bond with your baby.”

 

So we can always, almost always, find the positives that parents are doing and build on that to increase their own self-confidence so that they can, first of all, relax and enjoy this wonderful time in their lives, but also then can move into critical thinking about decisions that can be made along the way about healthcare, childcare, and going back to work or not and some of the choices you were dealing with—environmental decisions—just to feel like “I can do this job of parenting my child and I can really look to the best quality of life possible not only for me and my family, but for the school system my child’s going into, for the community where my child’s eventually going to be employed.”

 

Now new parents don’t need to think about all those things at once, but I think that it’s the coming together of support and information and confidence building. And I think that if there are problems, I haven’t really mentioned this. One of the things that parent educators do, in addition to providing information, is screening. Almost continually, watching the development in language development, hearing, speech, vision, so that if there are problems—getting those identified very early and getting those remedied, taken care of. So it’s that sort of combination of information, support, confidence building and red-flags dealt with if that’s necessary.

 

RM: Wow, that’s fantastic! … Now Sue, does Parents as Teachers also engage in advocacy work?

 

SS: Absolutely, Kemi. In fact, that’s one of the most important activities that my office, the National Center for Parents as Teachers, carries out. We know that much of the policy development in our country at all levels, and in other countries as well, does not think first about what is supportive of families and what is good for the children.

 

We bring a voice in Washington—as well as in many state capitals and even locally—to say this needs to be the first thing we think about, not the last thing we think about. Certainly, we are constantly advocating that there be family support programs, like Parents as Teachers—there is one major piece of legislation in congress right now called “The Education Begins at Home Act” that I would encourage listeners to ask their own members of Congress about. We want sponsors for it. We need that.

 

RM: Can you tell us a little bit about it?

 

SS: Yes, “The Education Begins at Home Act” has been introduced in both houses of Congress. It’s a $500 million piece of legislation that would spread Parents as Teachers and programs like it in all 50 states in ways that match whatever the states target as their need. It’s a federal program, but it would be very localized and tailored to the states. While $500 million would make an enormous difference in terms of family support, in terms of the federal budget it’s not a lot of money and it’s really a piece of legislation that deserves strong advocacy. We have about 50 supporters, co-sponsors in the House of Representatives. We have about 20 in the Senate. It’s a bi-partisan bill. It’s really getting momentum and we need more sponsors. That is one really hugely important advocacy endeavor.

 

The other thing that we’re involved with is much more on a general level, to say if it’s time to reauthorize Head Start in this country, then how do we need to do that to reach the most children in the best way? If it’s time to look at Welfare reform, how do we do that with the most sensitivity to the importance of parenting as well as the importance of work? And in general, it’s certainly been a dream of mine for a long time that every individual who runs for every office in this country, whether it’s the county sheriff or the president of the United States, gets barraged at every event with: What is your platform regarding children and families? How are you going to support children and families?

 

I would hope that your listeners take that opportunity as well. At every level, let’s hold policymakers accountable for policies that impact how children are going to succeed in school and in life. That is the best social policy we can do.

 

RM: Absolutely. How can our listeners find more information on how to participate in the work that you’re doing or about getting in touch with the policy-makers regarding these issues?

 

SS: I give two kinds of answers: First of all, our website has a wealth of information. It’s www.patnc.org. That would be a good place to start both for more information about Parents as Teachers and some links to general parenting information.

 

The other thing is to not be hesitant to approach policymakers. The League of Women Voters is in almost every community in this country and they can do wonderful linkages to members of Congress, members of state legislatures, and even local individuals. The Web makes these things incredibly easy these days in making it possible to communicate with policymakers. Obviously, your listeners understand the web technology and the possibilities that are just mushrooming for communication. They can not only be doing the best job possible with their own children, but also have a chance to really impact the fabric of the country.