Parent Project: Prescription for Parenting Problems

Parent Project: Learn how in just 24 hours you can bring peace back into your home, with proven techniques for parenting problematic teens.

Earlier this month, a group of local parents graduated from the Parent Project, an intensive 12-week parenting course offered by the  

addressed the graduates and expressed his gratitude to them for taking the course. The local department has offered the course three times and each time, the participants leave with the knowledge and skills to address their child's problematic behavior and to diffuse conflict in the home.

The Parent Project is a nationally recognized program that gives parents specific tools to reduce arguments between parents and adolescents and increase peace in the home.

During the course, participants learn valuable parenting skills that they can apply from week to week. The parents develop skills and use techniques that build upon one another. They also develop support and friendship with other parents as they work through the issues in their home.

Topics covered include: drugs, alcohol, truancy, lying, stealing, gang involvement and violence in the home. Since the course is taught by local police officers familiar with trends in juvenile justice and the local community, the participants receive valuable information that they would not otherwise learn.

E., a recent graduate of the Parent Project, stated that this course “gave (her) a totally different way of thinking when it comes to parenting. We still have issues and problems, but not to the same level and magnitude as before.” She continued, explaining that the Parent Project does not offer basic child rearing techniques, but instead, “the course goes beyond setting limits and basic expectations” to help parents when their adolescents are at-risk, out-of-control, moody, and defiant.

The Parent Project has been around for a decade and has graduated more than 100,000 parents nationwide and more than 1,100 parents from Santa Clara County have participated in the program. The Los Gatos-Monte Sereno Police Department hopes to offer the course again next year, but in the meantime, Parent Project classes in English, Spanish and now in Vietnamese are offered year-round at various locations in San Jose.

Interested parents should contact Santa Clara County District Attorney’s Office Parent Project Coordinator Gloria Maturino at 408-808-3794, or by e-mail her at gmaturino@da.sccgov.org. The course fee is $120, but scholarships are available on a limited basis.