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From: Effective Parenting Newsletter Parenting African-American Children CICC's Effective Black Parenting Program Founded in 1974, the Center for the Improvement of Child Caring (CICC) has grown to be one of the nation's largest and most productive nonprofit parenting and parenting education organizations. For more information about the Center's many programs, activities, and products and services, go to our website, www.ciccparenting.org, or call (800) 325-2422.
Why Parents of African-American Children Need and Deserve Culturally-Specific Training and Resources Raising African-American children in the United States is an extremely challenging task. Though all children progress through similar stages of development, and all children need nurturance and sensitive guidance, African-American children and their parents face special problems as a result of our country's history of racism and discrimination. These historic, social, political, moral and economic problems make it harder to raise proud and capable African-American children. Parents of African-American children face special challenges in terms of helping their children cope with racism and helping them maintain a positive cultural identity. This is so regardless of whether they are raising their children in affluent suburbs or inner city, low income communities. Like all parents, African-American parents can use a helping hand in raising children in today's dangerous and fast changing times. They can benefit from research-based parent training classes and seminars, and books, videos and guides that teach and inform how best to relate to children as they grow. But if such programming and resources do not also address and respect issues that are particular to raising African-American children, they are not being as helpful as they could be. This issue of Effective Parenting draws attention to programs and resources that are most relevant and respectful, as well as to important research findings.
Research and Theory on African-American Parenting In a chapter on African-American Parenting in the Handbook of Parenting, Volumn 4, Dr. Harriette P. McAdoo of Michigan State University indicates that the central issues that face African-American parents are:
CICC's Research on African-American Parenting With grant funding from the National Institute of Mental Health, CICC conducted extensive interviews with African-American parents of young children about their parenting attitudes, practices and worldviews. The findings of this pioneering study were carefully considered in deciding what to emphasize and teach in the parenting program for African-Americans that CICC was in the process of creating, the Effective Black Parenting program. Some of the key findings were that the African-American parents who were interviewed for this study:
The fullest coverage of these research results appears in the book, Black Parenting: Strategies for Training by Dr. Kerby T. Alvy. A chapter in another book by Dr. Alvy, Parent Training Today: A Social Necessity, also contains many of the study findings.
Guidebooks for African-American Parents Each of these books by scholars of African-American parenting and family life provide guidelines and authoritative information to enhance the quality of African-American family life and improve conditions in the community.
Afrocentricity Books These materials make the strong case of looking to the African heritage as a source of pride, wisdom and inspiration, especially in regard to relationships with children and youth.
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