Parents Anonymous

Last updated

Parents Anonymous (PA) is a self-help group for parents with the goal of preventing child abuse and providing support for parents. PA, first called Mother's Anonymous, was founded in 1967 by a 29-year-old mother, Jolly K., and a psychiatric social worker, Leonard L. Lieber. Jolly K. was under Lieber's care at the time, and he suggested she meet with another parent from his caseload who had similar issues. The organization grew slowly until it received a grant from the Office of Child Development and Health Education and Welfare in 1974. Unlike traditional twelve-step programs, PA mandates professional involvement, accepts funding from outside sources, but does emphasize the importance of protecting members' anonymity and never charges parents a fee, dues or charge for attending. [1] The PA Chapter Development Manual requires each chapter have professional facilitator who "should be a professional person from a 'helping' field with a profound respect for the self-help concept." [2] Parents Anonymous publishes a periodical, Frontiers, [3] and several manuals in addition to the Chapter Development Manual. [4]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Developmental psychology</span> Scientific study of psychological changes in humans over the course of their lives

Developmental psychology is the scientific study of how and why humans grow, change, and adapt across the course of their lives. Originally concerned with infants and children, the field has expanded to include adolescence, adult development, aging, and the entire lifespan. Developmental psychologists aim to explain how thinking, feeling, and behaviors change throughout life. This field examines change across three major dimensions, which are physical development, cognitive development, and social emotional development. Within these three dimensions are a broad range of topics including motor skills, executive functions, moral understanding, language acquisition, social change, personality, emotional development, self-concept, and identity formation.

Twelve-step programs are international mutual aid programs supporting recovery from substance addictions, behavioral addictions and compulsions. Developed in the 1930s, the first twelve-step program, Alcoholics Anonymous (AA), founded by Bill Wilson and Bob Smith, aided its membership to overcome alcoholism. Since that time dozens of other organizations have been derived from AA's approach to address problems as varied as drug addiction, compulsive gambling, sex, and overeating. All twelve-step programs utilize a version of AA's suggested twelve steps first published in the 1939 book Alcoholics Anonymous: The Story of How More Than One Hundred Men Have Recovered from Alcoholism.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Parenting</span> Process of raising a child

Parenting or child rearing promotes and supports the physical, emotional, social, spiritual and intellectual development of a child from infancy to adulthood. Parenting refers to the intricacies of raising a child and not exclusively for a biological relationship.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Postpartum depression</span> Endogenous major depressive episode experienced by women after giving birth

Postpartum depression (PPD), also called postnatal depression, is a type of mood disorder associated with childbirth, which can affect both sexes. Symptoms may include extreme sadness, low energy, anxiety, crying episodes, irritability, and changes in sleeping or eating patterns. Onset is typically between one week and one month following childbirth. PPD can also negatively affect the newborn child.

A toddler is a child approximately 12 to 36 months old, though definitions vary. The toddler years are a time of great cognitive, emotional and social development. The word is derived from "to toddle", which means to walk unsteadily, like a child of this age.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Codependency</span> Type of relationship where one person enables the others self-destructive tendencies

In sociology, codependency is a theory that attempts to explain imbalanced relationships where one person enables another person's self-destructive behavior such as addiction, poor mental health, immaturity, irresponsibility, or under-achievement.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Child care</span> Care and supervision of children

Child care, otherwise known as day care, is the care and supervision of a child or multiple children at a time, whose ages range from two weeks of age to 18 years. Although most parents spend a significant amount of time caring for their child(ren), child care typically refers to the care provided by caregivers that are not the child's parents. Child care is a broad topic that covers a wide spectrum of professionals, institutions, contexts, activities, and social and cultural conventions. Early child care is an equally important and often overlooked component of child's developments.

A form of child abuse, child neglect is an act of caregivers that results in depriving a child of their basic needs, such as the failure to provide adequate supervision, health care, clothing, or housing, as well as other physical, emotional, social, educational, and safety needs. All societies have established that there are necessary behaviours a caregiver must provide for a child to develop physically, socially, and emotionally. Causes of neglect may result from several parenting problems including mental disorders, unplanned pregnancy, substance use disorder, unemployment, over employment, domestic violence, and, in special cases, poverty.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Child abuse</span> Maltreatment or neglect of a child

Child abuse is physical, sexual, and/or psychological maltreatment or neglect of a child or children, especially by a parent or a caregiver. Child abuse may include any act or failure to act by a parent or a caregiver that results in actual or potential harm to a child and can occur in a child's home, or in the organizations, schools, or communities the child interacts with.

Early childhood is a stage in human development following infancy and preceding middle childhood. It generally includes toddlerhood and some time afterward. Play age is an unspecific designation approximately within the scope of early childhood.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Looking-glass self</span> Sociological term

The term looking-glass self was created by American sociologist Charles Horton Cooley in 1902, and introduced into his work Human Nature and the Social Order. It is described as our reflection of how we think we appear to others. Cooley takes into account three steps when using "the looking glass self". Step one is how one imagines one looks to other people. Step two is how one imagines the judgment of others based on how one thinks they view them. Step three is how one thinks of how the person views them based on their previous judgments.

A mental health counselor (MHC), or counselor, is a person who works with individuals and groups to promote optimum mental and emotional health. Such persons may help individuals deal with issues associated with addiction and substance abuse; family, parenting, and marital problems; stress management; self-esteem; and aging. The United States Bureau of Labor Statistics distinguishes "Mental Health Counselors" from "Social Workers", "Psychiatrists", and "Psychologists".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Neurotics Anonymous</span>

Neurotics Anonymous (N/A), founded in 1964, is a twelve-step program for recovery from mental and emotional illness. To avoid confusion with Narcotics Anonymous (NA), Neurotics Anonymous is abbreviated N/A or NAIL.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Child development</span> Developmental change in children

Child development involves the biological, psychological and emotional changes that occur in human beings between birth and the conclusion of adolescence. Childhood is divided into 3 stages of life which include early childhood, middle childhood, and late childhood (preadolescence). Early childhood typically ranges from infancy to the age of 6 years old. During this period, development is significant, as many of life's milestones happen during this time period such as first words, learning to crawl, and learning to walk. There is speculation that middle childhood/preadolescence or ages 6–12 are the most crucial years of a child's life. Adolescence is the stage of life that typically starts around the major onset of puberty, with markers such as menarche and spermarche, typically occurring at 12–13 years of age. It has been defined as ages 10 to 19 by the World Health Organization. In the course of development, the individual human progresses from dependency to increasing autonomy. It is a continuous process with a predictable sequence, yet has a unique course for every child. It does not progress at the same rate and each stage is affected by the preceding developmental experiences. Because genetic factors and events during prenatal life may strongly influence developmental changes, genetics and prenatal development usually form a part of the study of child development. Related terms include developmental psychology, referring to development throughout the lifespan, and pediatrics, the branch of medicine relating to the care of children.

Self-help groups for mental health are voluntary associations of people who share a common desire to overcome mental illness or otherwise increase their level of cognitive or emotional wellbeing. Despite the different approaches, many of the psychosocial processes in the groups are the same. Self-help groups have had varying relationships with mental health professionals. Due to the nature of these groups, self-help groups can help defray the costs of mental health treatment and implementation into the existing mental health system could help provide treatment to a greater number of the mentally ill population.

Vicarious trauma (VT) was a term invented by McCann and Pearlman that is used to describe how working with traumatized clients affects trauma therapists. Previously, the phenomenon was referred to as secondary traumatic stress coined by Dr. Charles Figley. The theory behind vicarious trauma is that the therapist has a profound world change and is permanently altered by the interaction of empathetic bonding with a client. This change is thought to have three conditional requirements: empathic engagement and exposure to graphic and traumatizing material, the therapist being exposed to human cruelty, and reenactment of trauma within the therapy process. This change can produce changes in a therapist’s sense of spirituality, worldview, and self-identity.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nicole Letourneau</span> Canadian Professor and Researcher

Nicole Lyn Letourneau is a Canadian professor and researcher. She is a Research Chair in Parent and Child Mental Health at the University of Calgary. Formerly she held the Alberta Children's Hospital Chair and Norlien Foundation Chair in Parent-Infant Mental Health (2011–2021) and Canada Research Chair in Healthy Child Development (2007–2011). She currently serves as the director of the RESOLVE Alberta and principal investigator for the CHILD Studies Program at Alberta Children's Hospital Research Institute. She has written over 210 peer-reviewed publications; authored the books, Parenting and Child Development: Issues and Answers, What Kind of Parent Am I:Self-Surveys That Reveal The Impact of Toxic Stress Scientific Parenting: What Science reveals about Parental Impact, and has contributed more than 20 other books on parenting and childcare.

Robert E. Valett was an American psychology professor who wrote more than 20 books primarily focused on educational psychology. He earned the distinguished psychologist award from the San Joaquin Psychological Association and was a president of the California Association of School Psychologists.

Social emotional development represents a specific domain of child development. It is a gradual, integrative process through which children acquire the capacity to understand, experience, express, and manage emotions and to develop meaningful relationships with others. As such, social emotional development encompasses a large range of skills and constructs, including, but not limited to: self-awareness, joint attention, play, theory of mind, self-esteem, emotion regulation, friendships, and identity development.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Breastfeeding and mental health</span>

Breastfeeding and mental health is the relationship between postpartum breastfeeding and the mother's and child's mental health. Research indicates breastfeeding may have positive effects on the mother's and child's mental health, though there have been conflicting studies that question the correlation and causation of breastfeeding and maternal mental health. Possible benefits include improved mood and stress levels in the mother, lower risk of postpartum depression, enhanced social emotional development in the child, stronger mother-child bonding and more. Given the benefits of breastfeeding, the World Health Organization (WHO), the European Commission for Public Health (ECPH) and the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) suggest exclusive breastfeeding for the first six months of life. Despite these suggestions, estimates indicate 70% of mothers breastfeed their child after birth and 13.5% of infants in the United States are exclusively breastfed. Breastfeeding promotion and support for mothers who are experiencing difficulties or early cessation in breastfeeding is considered a health priority.

References

  1. Gartner, Alan (1976). "Self-help and mental health". Social Policy. 7 (2): 28–40. PMID   10316986.
  2. Parents Anonymous chapter development manual. Torrance, CA: Parents Anonymous. 1974. OCLC   37659500.
  3. "Frontiers". Inglewood, CA: Parents Anonymous. OCLC   7324294.{{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  4. WorldCat search results list 48 books from Parents Anonymous