Better parenting skills taught

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A two-day workshop designed for Aboriginal parents seeking help in their journey to wellness was held at the Kapawe'no First Nation Band office on Nov. 29 and 30. The workshop provided community members with information about planning and strengthening their family life.

Presented by the Loussa Counselling Centre in Edmonton and Grouard Social Development, it was facilitated by Melinda-Hollis Banszky.

According to Violet Patenaude, social development director at Kapawe'no First Nation, a series of workshops in the community gives parents a chance to look at their past and style of parenting. She says that it also makes people see why they are the parents that they are.

"The journey into healing is what we will be covering," she said in the days leading up to the workshop. "We are going to look at our present situations as in adults acting like children and children forced to act like adults, the good child and the bad child, understanding the FAS child and the defiant child, understanding ourselves, the teenager or the adult," she said.

"We are also going to look on how to build self-esteem in ourselves and in our children so that we could have positive relationships with our families and we will also look at positive discipline," said Patenaude.

"The reason that we hold these here is that it is very expensive to go to Edmonton. The cost to go there and attend a workshop is about $400 (per person). It is a lot cheaper here. I'm hoping that the other band members of our neighboring communities will walk away from here with some ideas and put together their own parenting workshops in their areas," she said.

Patenaude believes that everyone needs to learn and hear something about parenting so that they can get the skills they need.

"As a community we are trying to prevent the crisis and problems before they happen. We are trying to help prevent small problems so that they do not turn into big problems. Some people were not taught how to parent, so it causes a lot of stress in the household and then it affects the community and the family starts breaking down because of this," she said.