Each 1 June is celebrated as United Nations (UN) Global Day of Parents.
The Thammasat University Library collection includes many books on different aspects of parenting.
As the UN website observes,
Appreciate All Parents Throughout the World
Since the 1980s, the important role of the family has increasingly come to the attention of the international community. The General Assembly adopted a number of resolutions and proclaimed the International Year of the Family and the International Day of Families.
Emphasizing the critical role of parents in the rearing of children, the Global Day of Parents recognizes that the family has the primary responsibility for the nurturing and protection of children. For the full and harmonious development of their personality, children should grow up in a family environment and in an atmosphere of happiness, love and understanding.
Designated by the General Assembly in 2012, Global Day of Parents provides an opportunity to appreciate all parents for their “selfless commitment to children and their lifelong sacrifice towards nurturing this relationship.”
Greater support needed for working parents as COVID-19 takes hold
Families bear the brunt of the COVID-19 pandemic. As the anchors of the family and the foundation of our communities and societies, parents have the responsibility of sheltering their families from harm, caring for out-of-school children and, at the same time, continuing their work responsibilities. Without support from parents, children’s health, education and emotional well-being is at risk. By introducing family-friendly workplace policies and practices, companies and organizations will be in a better position to promote children’s safety and wellbeing and provide systematic support to employees.
As the COVID-19 pandemic continues its exponential growth, a technical note from UNICEF, ILO and UN Women on family-friendly policies and other good workplace practices in the context of COVID-19 shows that it is essential to support working families to minimize negative consequences for children…
Tips for parenting during the COVID-19 outbreak
The novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) brings with it feelings like anxiety, stress and uncertainty — and they are felt especially strongly by children of all ages. Though all children deal with such emotions in different ways, if your child has been faced with school closures, cancelled events or separation from friends, they are going to need to feel loved and supported now more than ever.
Families and Parents: Key to Achieving the SDGs
Families remain at the centre of social life, ensuring the well-being of their members, educating and socializing children and youth and caring for young and old. In particular, family-oriented policies can contribute to the achievement of Sustainable Development Goals relating to doing away with poverty and hunger; ensuring healthy lives and promoting of well-being for all ages; ensuring educational opportunities throughout the lifespan and achieving gender equality.
Offering advice
An article posted on the UN website offers Novel Coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19) parenting tips.
This advice was developed in cooperation with the World Health Organization’s (WHO) Parenting for Lifelong Health (PLH), a series of
open access, non-commercialised parenting programmes to prevent violence in low-resource settings. These programmes have been developed and rigorously tested through a collaboration between WHO, Stellenbosch University and the University of Cape Town in South Africa, the universities of Oxford, Bangor and Reading in the United Kingdom, and UNICEF. Training in the PLH programmes is led by various non-governmental organisations, including Clowns Without Borders South Africa (South Africa), the Prevention Research for Community, Family and Child Health at Stellenbosch University (South Africa) and the Children’s Early Intervention Trust (Wales). After showing positive results in the evaluations, the programmes are currently being scaled up in over 20 low- and middle-income countries across Sub-Saharan Africa, South-eastern Europe, Southeast Asia, and the Caribbean. Additionally, several studies of the programmes are currently underway to further develop the evidence base for these interventions.
Aim
The aim of PLH is to develop, test and widely disseminate, through the provision of specific training, a suite of parenting programmes for low-resource settings that is affordable, not for profit, open access, and based on rigorous evidence.
This suite of programmes has a key goal of preventing child maltreatment and involvement in other forms of violence. It also shows benefits in improving parent-child relationships, enhancing security of child attachment, and of child cognitive and socio-emotional development, reducing family mental health distress, increasing family economic resilience, and reducing substance use.
Evidence shows that preventing child maltreatment and later violence can also result in important long-term physical and mental health and socio-occupational benefits as children become adults and parents themselves.
Rationale
Recent knowledge about the prevalence of child maltreatment and other childhood adversities, and about the links between childhood adversities, poor parenting, and their serious and life-long consequences, has resulted in multiple calls for innovative and concerted strategies to reduce them.
In high-income countries, parenting programmes are a strategy that has been shown to have major and long-lasting benefits in preventing child maltreatment and reducing violence both to and by young people. These programmes typically aim to strengthen caregiver-child relationships through play and praise, and to help parents to manage children’s behaviour through effective, age-appropriate, positive discipline strategies.
These programmes are very often too expensive for low- and middle-income countries and not always culturally appropriate. Hence, there are currently no widely available parenting support programmes that are evidence-based, culturally appropriate, and affordable for low-resource settings, where the need is the greatest.
Among the counsel offered to parents about COVID-19 are the following:
- Talking about COVID-19
Be willing to talk. They will already have heard something. Silence and secrets do not protect our children. Honesty and openness do. Think about how much they will understand. You know them best.
Be open and listen
Allow your child to talk freely. Ask them open questions and find out how much they already know.
Be honest
Always answer their questions truthfully. Think about how old your child is and how much they can understand.
Be supportive
Your child may be scared or confused. Give them space to share how they are feeling and let them know you are there for them.
It is OK not to know the answers
It is fine to say “We don’t know, but we are working on it; or we don’t know, but we think.” Use this as an opportunity to learn something new with your child!
Heroes not bullies
Explain that COVID-19 has nothing to do with the way someone looks, where they are from, or what language they speak. Tell your child that we can be compassionate to people who are sick and those who are caring for them. Look for stories of people who are working to stop the outbreak and are caring for sick people.
There are a lot of stories going around
Some may not be true. Use trustworthy sites like UNICEF and the World Health Organization.
End on a good note
Check to see if your child is okay. Remind them that you care and that they can they can talk to you anytime. Then do something fun together!
(All images courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)