Bringing RC to Working-Class Parents

The following are some ideas for making RC accessible to working-class parents:


  • A class could meet once a week on a Saturday morning, and the parents could cooperatively pay for on-site childcare. In the summer, the childcare could be in a park, with the class in a house or other building nearby.
  • A class could meet every other week, or once a month, for four hours. (Because of the long breaks between classes, parents would need to see the benefits of the class early, to stay committed.) Each parent could have a buddy [support person] who would stay connected with them in between classes, remind them that their participation matters, and Co-Counsel with them or give them one-way time.
  • One could meet with parents to help them figure out childcare. Who do they want their children to be closer to? Could that person do childcare during the class? Most grandparents would be delighted to care for their grandchildren for a few hours. Or perhaps there are grandparents in the neighborhood who miss spending time with children.
  • Bringing RC insights to institutions that parents already participate in—schools, day care centers, housing cooperatives, and so on—could be a great way to get these insights to parents.
  • I’ve heard of family-focused RC classes that meet one week with just parents, followed by a week with both parents and children who are involved in RC family work.
  • I once was in a class that included a young couple with a baby. Both parents attended. One would be in the class, while the other would be in another room with the baby. Then they would switch, so both could get class time.
  • The best way I’ve found to bring RC to parents in my local non-RC Community is one-on-one. I share my caring with my friends, give attention to their children, and occasionally talk about why I am doing certain RC things. I might casually say something like, “My child is experiencing a lot of anxiety again, so we’ve gone back to wrestling with her every night before bed.” This doesn’t usually lead to parents joining our local RC Community, but it does give them resources that originated in RC.
  • The pamphlet Listening Effectively to Children, by Patty Wipfler (former International Liberation Reference Person for Parents), does a good job of bringing RC insights to parents. It can be ordered from Rational Island Publishers.
  • In general, it takes a lot of resource to bring RC to working-class parents. I think support for parents should be society’s highest priority. When we don’t support parents, then parents are scrambling to provide everything children need—something only a community can do well. A sustainable society would put parents and children at the center.

H—


USA


Reprinted from the e-mail discussion 
list for RC Community members

(Present Time 209, October 2022)

Last modified: 2022-12-25 02:17:04-08