Online Parenting Resources

Child Development | Discipline & Behavior | Parent - Child Relationship | School and Learning | Child Care Resources | Teen Resources | Spanish | Somali

These free online resources offer helpful hints and support to parents.

Child Development

• Children Home Alone — Self-care can be a rewarding experience for children who are ready for it.
• Praise that Builds a Child’s Self-Esteem — In an effort to enhance their children's self-esteem, parents should use praise to recognize the efforts and accomplishments of their children.
• Making Friends — During the preschool years children develop social skills they'll need to establish and maintain friendship.

Discipline & Behavior

• Catch Your Child Being Good — Many parents spend a good deal of time attending to their children when they're misbehaving. However, when they are behaving appropriately, parents often don't say or do anything.
• Dealing with a Child’s Anger — Just as children have a right to be happy, sad, lonely, or bored, they also have the right to feel angry.
• Dealing with Your Own Anger — Anger is a normal reaction. It's also an emotion many parents don't know how to deal with when it comes to their children.
• Listening Skills — Reviews why listening to your child is important and how it acts as discipline tool.
• Monitoring Tips — A strategy that is effective in preventing problem behavior is parental monitoring.
• Guidelines for Setting Consequences with Your Child — Strategies for parents to use to teach natural and logical consequences rather than punishment to change the child's behavior.
• Setting Limits for Responsive Discipline — Limits are like the guardrails on a bridge — they provide a sense of security.
• Using “Time Out” as a Discipline Tool — Time out is a way of correcting behavior by placing a misbehaving child in a quiet place alone for a few minutes and then talking about the problem.
• Truancy: Why It’s Important to Go to School — One of the most important things families can do to help children succeed is to make sure they attend school regularly.
• Using Guidance Tools — Strategies for parents to use in managing conflict and to teach responsibility.
• Using Natural and Logical Consequences — By allowing children to experiene the pleasant or unpleasant consequence of their behavior, parents and caregivers help chidlren learn what happens because of the behavior choices they made.
• Using Nurturance and Prevention Tools — Strategies to help parents raise healthy, happy, secure children and strategies parents can use when children are not misbehaving that will keep problems from occurring.
• What About Spanking? — There are many teaching, nurturing, and disciplining tools available to parents that are more effective and less harmful than spanking and other forms of physical punishment.
• Parenting Styles — Although parents at one time or another use all the parenting styles they tend to primarily parent using one approach.

Parent - Child Relationship

• Making Family Mealtime a Tradition Online Course — Short, free online course to learn about the benefits of eating meals together as a family. Are you in the MFIP/TANF program? This course counts as one hour of a Core TANF activity for Life Skills Training.
• The Importance of Family Mealtimes — Learn the benefits of serving family meals and find resources for getting started.
• Encouraging Respectful Behavior — Parents and caregivers can do many things to encourage respectful behavior in a child.
• Helping Children Become Responsible — The idea of teaching responsibility to children in our society and culture has changed, but some of the basics remain from generation to generation.
• Families Find Quality Time Volunteering Together — Volunteering can help families learn new skills, teach responsibility, and bring them closer together.
• Family Problem Solving — When people are ready to talk about family issues or conflicts, two essential ingredients are needed.
• Grief and Crisis Decisions — During a stressful period or disaster, the decision-making process can be greatly affected by our emotional responses to loss and grief.
• Vacation - A Learning Experience — The more positive and constructive learning experiences children have outside of school, the better they do in school.

School and Learning

Child Care Resources

• Child Care Dilemmas: What Do I Do When... — No matter how good you feel about the child care that you have selected for your child, you still need to plan for certain situations.
• Child Care: Raising Children Together — Good child care provides parents with an extended family to help share in the challenges and joys of raising children.
• Child Care Food: What Will My Child Eat — Your child will also learn, think, play, and work with others better if they are eating right.
• Communicating With Your Provider — Good communication is the key to a positive child care experience for you, your child and your child care provider.
• Preparing Children for Child Care — Entering a new child care home or center is a common new experience for many children.
• Quality Child Care: How Do I Know It When I See It? — Finding out about all the options open to you is only the first step in selecting child care.
• Understanding Child Care Contracts and Rules — Knowing the ground rules is important to a successful relationship with a child care provider.
• The Parent - Provider Partnership — Understanding yourself and your expectations of your provider can help you build a positive partnership and reduce anxiety.
• Developmentally Appropriate Care: What Does It Mean? — While there is no one right way to care for children, there are guidelines that focus on how a child develops and the care that is appropriate at various stages.
• Unemployed Parenthood: Do I Have a Choice? — To work or not to work is one of the biggest questions you and your family needs to answer when you have children.
• Finding Child Care: Questions to Ask — The first steps in selecting child care are to determine your needs and a list of potential providers.
• The Cost of Raising Children — Summary of how much of a family's yearly income is spent on the children, how it is affected by the number of children, and more.

Somali

• Xannaanada Caruurta (Child Care - Somali) — Questions to ask when you place your child in the care of someone else.

Spanish

• Consejos para cuidado del niño (Child Care: What to Look For — Spanish) — Questions to ask when you place your child in the care of someone else.
• Apoyar la educación de su niño (Working with your Child’s School - Spanish) — Recommended practices for you to use with your son or daughter’s school, to help them be successful.

See additional resources for teens