Elizabeth's Story
Elizabeth Bernal is no stranger to the rewards of parenting classes. Experience has taught her that the more resources a parent taps into the better. “I love continually coming to parenting classes,” the mother of two shares.” It gives you a reminder all the time and it takes time to make skillful parenting a habit.”
The Renton Area Youth and Family Services West Hill Family Center’s (RAYS) Strengthening Multi-Ethnic Families and Communities class is a family affair for Elizabeth, her husband Jose Antonio Garcia, and sons Emmanuel, age 4, and Matthew, 5 months. This parenting education program welcomes the whole family to participate and offers Spanish-speaking parents the tools to increase their sense of competence as parents. The program helps the whole family by connecting them with community activities, improving parent-child and family interactions, and helping children build self-esteem, self-discipline, and social confidence. On top of all that, the class comes with culturally authentic meals and a literary-enhanced childcare program that readily offers homework help—all for free. RAYS also offers each class participant access to the Center’s other youth and community development programs, emergency and holiday assistance, resource information, and a technology center.
The 12-week education program is the third parenting class that Elizabeth has joined but the first one she has found in her native language. “Because this class is in Spanish I can understand more,” Elizabeth says. “I feel freer among my culture, which makes it easier to realize that we all experience the same difficulties as parents.”
This cultural comfort level has helped Elizabeth to quickly build her parenting skills. “I am gaining my son’s trust,” says Elizabeth as she describes the most precious outcome from the class. Elizabeth entered the class determined to improve her ability to positively discipline her children, and she has done so. Elizabeth proudly beams, “Since beginning the class, I haven’t even yelled at my sons once.”
Indeed, the entire family has benefited from the class. “We were raised one way and this class presented us with a whole new method of parenting,” Jose Antonio shares. “This class has taught me how to take time for my kids and has improved our communication. The program is good in every way.”
Even young Emmanuel has gotten into the routine of supporting his mother when he notices her stress rising. “Mommy, remember—breathe,” Elizabeth mimics Emmanuel’s recent comforting words.
The husband-and-wife duo that teaches the class, Victor and Angelica Ramirez, agree that Elizabeth and Jose Antonio’s progress is spot-on with the goals of the curriculum. The class instructs that awareness of concrete parenting techniques is critical. “Many parents just don’t know about them and that they must look for help in many places,” Victor says. “We coach our class to develop a willingness to keep looking for resources.” Strong self-control is the underlying message of the program, though. “Every single class that we teach talks about violence,” Victor states, “and the over-arching goal is to prevent abuse in families.”
“There is a lot of need for support of Spanish-speaking families,” reminds Victor. This need has been high among Children’s Trust Foundation’s priorities recently. In 2009, we devoted nearly 50% of our grants in support of programs for Latino families. In 2010, we will be working to support Latino families in even greater numbers with partnerships with Latino business leaders and programs designed to train instructors for Spanish-speaking parenting classes, just like Victor and Angelica. The RAYS Strengthening Multi-Ethnic Families class is just one of the many culturally-sensitive programs that Children's Trust Foundation has been dedicated to supporting.