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Parent Express for 17-Apr-2008
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Welcome to Parent Express, the PCI e-zine! Here you will find updates on the Parent Coaching Institute, along with ideas and practical tips for the parenting journey. National Turn-Off the TV Week is just around the corner. Taking a screen break can be a great way to reconsider the 5–6 hours daily our children watch TV—an outrageous national average. A week off completely may restore insights about "What to do?" and help many children and families reclaim their daily lives—at least for seven days. Once the week is over, back to moderation and media literacy! Cathy Adams, PCI Certified Parent Coach® espouses in her work www.intentionalparent.net. The article she has written, "No Place Like Home," reminds us that we can make a movie-viewing experience a special event for our children by setting our intention to do so. With a little planning and promoting positive anticipation, watching a film together becomes a both a shared family activity as well as a great learning experience for our youngsters. Consciously creating such regular media memories models wise use and goes a long way to help children control, for their own purposes, all forms of screen technology. May family media literacy reign at your house this week and every week…all year long, Gloria DeGaetano, Founder and CEO 
Take Advantage of Early Registration for Summer Quarter! Applications are now being accepted for entrance Summer Quarter for the Parent Coach Certification® Training Program with phone classes for Course 1 beginning the week of June 23. Phone classes are in the evening time to accommodate work schedules of our students. Send in your basic application before May 15 and receive $500.00 off the cost of tuition. Deadline to apply for Summer Quarter is June 6. Spaces are limited. Early applications receive first consideration. Please send in the basic application as your first step. Transcripts and letters of reference can follow the basic application by a few weeks. Download the application here. Send to the PCI at: 1400-112th Ave. SE, Bellevue, WA 98004. Questions? Please call: (425) 401-1519. Learn more about our acclaimed, graduate-level, distance-learning Parent Coach Certification® Program by clicking here for more information. Check out our Video About the PCI Parent Coach Training Program and see what professionals think about their training with the PCI.
"Since becoming a parent coach student, I have grown to have a strong emotional and spiritual link to the PCI, its vision, its future, and, of course, its founder. I have experienced great personal growth through my year of working to become certified as a parent coach. I have seen many changes in myself, in my family dynamics and in my supervisory role in my work life. These changes can be directly traced to my studies and practice of the principles and vision of the Parent Coaching Institute. I have come to believe that the world can be changed, and will be changed, by the practice of these principles and through the coaching relationship."
"Gloria, words can't express how thrilled I am to have found the PCI and this amazing program. Thank you for all you do to keep the PCI moving forward and onward. Your efforts, sacrifices, and vision continue to bless families within the PCI and those we coach."
"The whole PCI experience has made every breath more fun."
Working with a parent coach who has received Parent Coach Certification® through the PCI is giving yourself a valuable gift as well as a sound investment in your family's future. PCI Certified Parent Coaches® are caring, thoughtful professionals with years of experience working with parents. They have successfully completed the PCI Parent Coach Certification® Training Program—a comprehensive academic one-year, graduate-level program in collaboration with Seattle Pacific University. Through a series of coaching conversations that can be either by telephone or in person, PCI Parent Coaches help you re-discover your dreams and design your life for more joy and satisfaction. To find a PCI Parent Coach in your area, please click here or call (425) 401-1519 for a referral to a PCI Parent Coach selected especially for you. 
Visit www.parentappreciationradio.com to listen to programs featuring PCI Certified Parent Coaches® and other experts from around the country discussing topics of interest to moms and dads. Programs are available as podcasts. Listeners can download individual episodes directly, listen to them from this site using a Web browser, or via the iTunes podcast directory. iTunes subscribers will automatically pick up new episodes as they become available!  There's No Place Like Home by Cathy Cassani Adams, LCSW, PCI Certified Parent Coach® I admit, it is my favorite movie. When I was a child I dressed up as Dorothy for Halloween three years in a row. I consistently encourage parents to not push their hopes and dreams on their kids, but deep down I was hoping that my children would enjoy The Wizard of Oz. This is a big movie that touches on a lot of different emotions so we introduced it slowly. About a year ago I read them their first Wizard of Oz book and we followed up with a 30- minute Wizard of Oz cartoon that they still occasionally request. The books and cartoon made them familiar with the story, but to me, it is the music that makes it so magical. I found a CD that has all of the songs from the movie and much of the movie dialogue as well. The girls played it over and over again on the CD player until even I began to tire of "Somewhere Over the Rainbow." After all of this preparation, we decided that it was time to watch the "real" Wizard of Oz (as the girls call it). As a family we looked at the calendar and we chose a Friday night. We had two weeks to think about it, talk about it, and get excited for it. We planned the menu (pizza before the movie, popcorn during, and ice cream at intermission), and we decided that we should wear our pajamas. In an effort to lessen potential fear, we decided to show the girls the Wizard of Oz movie trailer (which can be easily accessed on the Internet) so they could experience the wicked witch and the flying monkeys before the big event. Every morning the girls would ask how many days until our movie party and we would show them the days on the calendar. At night in their bunk beds the girls would ask, "is it tomorrow? Is tomorrow the day?" They would go to bed giggling and talking about our upcoming family movie date. |
PCI in Newsweek
Introducing Screen Time Matters
New Important Research 
Oregon Parenting Education and Support Conference Gloria DeGaetano will be a Keynote Speaker at Parenting Now's Conference in Eugene, Oregon. Parenting Now, a division of Birth to 3, is dedicated to sharing information to strengthen and celebrate families. Gloria will speak on Cherishing Childhood in Our Screen Machine World and will provide a workshop component on Computers in Early Childhood. To register or for more information, please contact Mika Singer, Managing Director, (541) 349-7783 or msinger@birthto3.org.
Reflections on My Parents Who by Elizabeth Patterson, PCI Parent Coach® Park City, Utah First, I have to say how much your book Parenting Well in a Media Age—Keeping Our Kids Human has affected not only my own parenting and my future coaching, but also my whole perspective about my own childhood. Reading and studying it has given me a real paradigm shift. I am second in a family of eight children. I often thought my parents a little odd and backward, and even felt I had a deprived childhood at times. I don't remember going to Disneyland or out for hamburgers. We had only one small black-and-white TV, the use of which was limited to one program a day maximum. My parents had us gather 'round for Scrabble, Scripture reading, and math games, and irritatingly played classical music around the house—even opera! Even though we were financially well off, my Mom wore less-than-fashionable but comfortable and practical styles like a big warm puffy coat that made me cringe when she came to see me cheerlead at high school basketball games. She liked to sew many of my clothes, and insisted we take our own healthy snacks with us to the circus instead of buying popcorn and soda. And even though we had two cars, my Dad rode his bike any place he could—where all my friends could see—and my parents refused to drive me to the High School which was close to a mile away, saying I could walk or bike. My weekly assignment to vacuum Widow Hogard's tiny home as she walked behind me holding my elbow the whole time wasn't exactly a social highlight. Instead of going out with friends on New Year's Eve like most other parents, my parents said they preferred to be with their children. I was embarrassed by how out-of-the-ordinary our family was, but my parents seemed to get a kick out of being different. Their theme song, which they sang out loud, was "Side by Side." One year we moved up to the mountains for the summer, and built a log cabin together, while all my friends were tanning at the neighborhood pool. Most unusual of all, my parents between them took time to read to every one of us pretty much every night—up into our teen years, and most of that time was one-on-one. On nights they didn't read, Mom would quote poetry to us as she rubbed our backs with her rough hands. |
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This issue of Parent Express was originally published April 17, 2008. Some content, contact information, and links may be out of date, and the conversion from the original email edition may introduce formatting inconsistencies.
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