‘Parenting for school success’ conference this weekend

Research has consistently shown that a parent or guardian’s involvement is key to the educational success of a child. It leads to a higher level of academic achievement and better behavior, among other positives. A lack of involvement, researchers say, can lead to misbehavior, poor grades and higher dropout rates.

That’s why the Iowa Parent Information Resource Center and the Iowa Parent-Teacher Association will host “Parenting for School Success,” a day-long summit on Saturday, April 24 to provide parents and others influential in a child’s life information about how to help children in areas such as homework and to learn ways to increase their involvement.

“Recent research findings clearly indicate that if parents – a child’s primary caregiver – are actively engaged in their child’s learning, the children achieve at higher levels, graduate from high school, are motivated to further their education beyond high school

and become contributing citizens,” said Ed Redalen, director of the Iowa Parent Information Resource Center. “The Iowa PIRC supports all organizations that strive to improve the learning and developmental outcomes for all children and youth.”

The summit will take place April 24 at Kirkwood Center for Continuing Education, 7725 Kirkwood Blvd. S.W., in Cedar Rapids.

“As schools adjust to budget cuts and new education standards, the one constant is parents,” said Tammy Koolbeck, Iowa PTA Convention chairwoman. “Schools who have active, engaged parents are stronger academically and safer.”

Koolbeck said this year’s convention, which is the first time the state PTA has worked with the state parent resource center, will take on a new component with the addition of sessions about parental involvement and engagement.

The summit is open to all parents, grandparents and other guardians, as well as educators and community members. Membership in the PTA is not required to attend.

Sessions will begin at 11:15 a.m. and run until 3:40 p.m., followed by a parent panel discussion about successful school involvement. Registration begins at 8 a.m.

Session topics vary and include:

Information about attributes children need in order to be successful in school and how parents can help their children acquire the skills to be successful.

An overview of the Iowa Core Curriculum: what it is, why it’s important and how it will affect Iowa students.

Ways parents can enhance their children’s literacy skills at home beginning at ayoung age through reading and writing.

Tips for how to have a successful parent-teacher conference and questions to ask.

Suggestions for how parents of special needs children can advocate for their child and work with school leaders to ensure the child’s academic success.

Other sessions will feature a panel discussion about substance abuse, along with a presentation about financial literacy and how to teach children to stay out of debt, use credit cards and protect their credit.

The summit also will feature sessions designed to improve PTA groups such as basic information about membership, how to run a meeting and how to appropriately report tax documentation, as well as a special session about how to recruit men to join the PTA.

“We have several workshops designed to give each attendee the tools to make parenting for school success easier,” said Claire Leonard, the Iowa PTA president. “We will provide helpful tools for those who are looking for a way to improve their local PTA.”

Registration information can be accessed through the Iowa PTA’s Web site at www.iowapta.org

McDowell parenting seminar in Marion Saturday

Well-known author and speaker Josh McDowell will present a parenting/grandparenting seminar, titled “The 411 on Parenting: How to Positively Influence Your Children and Grandchildren,” on Saturday, April 10 at St. Mark’s Lutheran Church Faith and Life Center, 8300 C Ave. NE, Marion.

The seminar, sponsored by the Isaac Newton Christian Academy, runs from 6:15 to 9 p.m. The venue is St. Mark’s Lutheran Church Faith and Life Center, 8300 C Avenue NE, Marion. Doors will open at 5:30.

Tickets are $5 in advance and $7 at the door. Seating is limited. Purchase tickets at the Isaac Newton Christian Academy’s Web site, Lemstone/Parable Christian book stores, the Isaac Newton office, St. Mark’s Lutheran, and some other area churches.

“The 411 on Parenting” will feature three sessions: Relationships that Transform; Bible: Fact or Fiction?; and The Seven Principles of Relationships. There will be book tables featuring materials from Josh’s organization, plus refreshments and information on Isaac Newton Christian Academy.

McDowell has spoken to over 10 million people in over 100 countries. A former agnostic, he was challenged in young adulthood to examine the claims of Christianity on an intellectual basis and discovered compelling and overwhelming evidence for the reliability of the Christian faith. An award-winning author, he has written or co-written over 100 books, including bestsellers “More Than a Carpenter” and “New Evidence That Demands a Verdict” which was selected by World Magazine as one of the century’s most influential books.

POLL: Mother takes Davenport to court over parental responsibility law

The Iowa Supreme Court is scrutinizing a Davenport city ordinance that holds parents responsible when their children are arrested or cited for crimes.

The Supreme Court heard arguments in early March in the case of Anne Hensler, a Davenport mother who was cited under the law when her son was accused of drug possession and a curfew violation.

Hensler took the city to court to challenge the ordinance, arguing that she had the right to parent free from undue intrusion by the state. A Scott County judge ruled in her favor, but the city appealed to the Supreme Court.

Under the ordinance, parents of minors who are arrested or cited for crimes are sent warning letters on the first offense. Parents are required to complete parenting classes on the second offense and could face fines of up to $750 on the third.

Davenport City Attorney Tom Warner said the ordinance brought down juvenile crime in the city, before the court ruling last year put the enforcement of it on hold.

He said the law serves as a strong nudge for parents to get help, and he is optimistic that the state’s highest court will uphold it. Warner was unaware of other similar laws in Iowa.

Part of the arguments Tuesday centered around whether the law should be allowed to stay in place when the state already has a Juvenile Court system to handle delinquency cases.

Warner said the city’s parental responsibility ordinance is complementary to the juvenile system, which moves more slowly.

“They may get arrested multiple times and get into even more trouble while this Juvenile Court matter is pending. This is designed to get to them faster,” Warner said of the ordinance.

Parents who take one of six actions outlined in the ordinance to exercise parental control — such as requiring the child to observe a curfew or ensuring the child regularly attends school — can use that as a defense.

Attorney Randall Wilson of the American Civil Liberties Union of Iowa argued that Davenport’s law violates due process rights and intrudes on parental autonomy.

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Parenting, A to Z: New 1,100-page book has it all

If the common thread connecting U.S. toilet-training theories, divorce customs during the French Revolution and Spot, the family dog, eludes you, pick up a copy of “The Child: An Encyclopedic Companion” (The University of Chicago Press, $75), the new reference book weighing only slightly less than an actual newborn.

Conceived in 1999, the book was 10 years in the making, drawing on the expertise of hundreds of researchers from around the world and covering topics ranging from pediatrics to education to psychology to law in its 529 cross-referenced entries — all revolving around the central theme of the child.

“This was a much more ambitious topic than, for example, the Supreme Court,” said Mary Laur, senior project editor for reference books. “In some ways it’s like (having created an) ‘Oxford Companion to Human Life’ because every aspect of life that affects anyone affects children.”

It also happens to make for really interesting reading.

Say you’re concerned about the number of hours your fourth-grader spends on homework. You turn to the “homework” entry and learn that children in third through sixth grades benefit most from 30 to 60 minutes each day. But you also learn that during the 1940s homework fell out of favor when the emphasis in education shifted from drill to problem-solving. The launch of Sputnik in the ’50s reversed this thinking, when Americans worried about their children’s technological acumen. In the ’60s, homework became a symbol of needless pressure on students, only to return to favor in the ’80s.

At the end of the homework entry, you notice “See also: Class size” and decide to flip to that entry and learn, among other things, that the pupil-to-teacher ratio in U.S. public schools dropped to about 23 in 2000 from about 40 in 1900. And on your way to the class-size entry, you pass an entry on Catholicism you’d like to read and an essay titled “Memories of Childhood on an Israeli Kibbutz” that piques your interest. (The book contains 41 “Imagining Each Other” essays describing childhood in various cultures.)

“It’s everything you ever wanted to know but never even thought to ask,” editor-in-chief Richard Shweder said with a laugh. “We wanted it to be authoritative, balanced, clear, lacking in jargon and appealing to a very broad group — everyone from parents to grandparents to lawyers to pediatricians to educators to social workers.”

And it’s all in one place.

“One of the big aims of the book is to take the scholarship that’s floating around in a separate sphere from what most parents are going to read and turn it into something they can use,” Laur said. “To round it all up and make it accessible for people who don’t have a lot of time and don’t have the energy and inclination to go read a bunch of research on these topics.”

Laur emphasized that although it took 10 years to turn the concept into a 1,144-page book, the information is all up-to-date.

“After the planning and the conceptualizing, invitations to authors didn’t go out until 2005, and we started getting essays back in 2006,” she said. “None of it was written more than three years ago, and it’s been through multiple stages and updates since then.”

Which is important when tackling such oft-discussed topics.

“It sort of amazes me, ‘Oh, here’s another childhood obesity story, oh, here’s another one, oh, here’s another one,” Laur said. “And to the extent I can even keep them straight, they all seem to have a little spin to make them slightly different from the last one.

“For parents trying to make sense of all the stories coming out day after day, I like to think this book gives some answers.”

To read sample entries or order a copy of “The Child,” go to press.uchicago.edu/books/TheChild.

5 things to learn from ‘The Child’

• Child care: Although the debate over quality day care often assumes working moms are a relatively modern phenomenon, this entry points out that in most cultures, the U.S. included, women have been working outside the home for centuries — in factories, on farms — while their husbands were at war. “The issue of who’s going to take care of the kids is not unique to this time and place,” said Mary Laur, senior project editor for reference books at The University of Chicago Press. “What is unique is this idea that the nuclear family is responsible and if you have to go outside the nuclear family there’s a little bit of embarrassment or concern that you’re failing your child. There’s always been the issue of having other people pitch in and help.”
• Handedness: Twins are more likely to be left-handed than singletons, but identical twins can show a preference for opposite hands.
• Grandparents: In 1900, only 6 percent of 10-year-olds in the U.S. had all four grandparents living. By the end of the 20th century, the number rose to 40 percent.
• Pets: Children in the U.S. are more likely to grow up with a pet than with both parents.
• Food aversions and preferences: Throughout most of human history, milk was unavailable for consumption after a child was weaned from breast milk, implying there are no strong lifelong attachments to early foods. In fact, this entry states, there is no evidence that the foods of the first three to six years of life have an important role in shaping adult preferences, despite popular belief.

– McClatchey-Tribune Information Services