County to hold parenting seminar over Zoom

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County to hold parenting seminar over Zoom
Allie VanSickle will lead three parenting seminars next month. Courtesy | Allie VanSickle

A local organization hopes to make parenting easier by offering a seminar next month featuring a Hillsdale-based therapist.

Child Abuse Prevention and Awareness of Hillsdale will offer a multi-day workshop with local therapist and parenting specialist Allie VanSickle on Feb. 6, 13, and 20 from 5 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. The workshop will take place via Zoom.

During the three seminars, VanSickleshe will speak, give a talk as well as lead discussion among parents who attend, and open it up for parents to give their thoughts and learn from each other.

“During the first session we talk about really important skills like how to praise children,” she said. “For example, telling a child, ‘good job,’ confuses children. You need to really descriptive praise like, ‘good job for doing x, y, and z.’”

The second session discusses on raising confident children, and the last on resilience in children. “Raising Confident, Competent Children” and the last centers on methods to raise “resilient” children. 

Christie Campbell,  is the executive director of CAPA, and works to increase awareness of child abuse and neglect in the county. She says this seminar is for any parent, regardless of circumstances. 

“This is for any parent. It’s always good to get more information,” Campbell said. “Parenting is hard. There’s not a handbook for parenting. Parents can have a little extra help. I, it’s OK to ask for help, it’s OK to seek help. This is just another way to help our kids grow up healthy and strong and help our parents bring them up that way.”

VanSickle was trained by Triple P—Positive Parenting Program—an Australian-based parenting and family support system that strives to “create family environments that encourage children to realize their potential,” according to its website.

“Triple P is the most evidence-based parenting program in the world,” she said. “It helps parents learn assertive discipline skills, how to raise children appropriately, and how to be more positive support for children.”

VanSickle has hosted the seminar twice for Hillsdale County in the past, including just two weeks ago. She is not worried about hosting the talks over video-conference.

“Zoom is great because you can reach more people,” she said. “A lot of parents actually told me they like Zoom because they’re in the comfort of their own home.”

Campbell said she’s excited to have VanSickle present again. They brought VanSickle in the first time for the talks and said she’s “excited” to have her back in February.

“She does a great job with our presentations and we got really great feedback from the first one that we did,” Campbell said. “So we were excited to be able to offer this again with her doing it.”

Campbell said Hillsdale County does not offer many parenting programs, so she is “excited to be able to bring this to the county and offer it.”

“It’s not just like any other program—they have evidence that it works,” she said. “To have a positive parenting program is just fantastic.”

VanSickle said parents can do what they want with the information, but it’s important to try the methods she presents during the three-part course. 

“While parents can take or leave whatever skills they find helpful, Triple P teaches that it is important parents try the evidence-based parenting skills first for a few weeks before rejecting the effective parenting strategies,” she said. 

To learn more or sign up for the seminar, contact Allie VanSickle at allie.llmsw@gmail.com.