Joanna Frketich
The Hamilton Spectator, August 17, 2007
Christine and Andrew Winter had a brutal initiation into parenthood. One-week-old Abby contracted a viral infection that left her so severely congested her parents had to keep her upright 24 hours a day. Doctor's orders.
For eight gruelling days and nights, the baby was never put down.
The 32-year-old first-time parents from Beamsville took shifts holding her round-the-clock until they were utterly exhausted.
"I don't know if anything can prepare you for that," said Christine Winter. "I didn't realize you could be that tired."
What got them through was knowing how to work together under extreme stress. They'd learned it in a groundbreaking parenting course about to be tested throughout the Golden Horseshoe. Without it, they don't know how they would have survived the roughest week they've faced as a couple.
"When it's 2 a.m. and you're both exhausted, it's very easy to snap," said Christine. "It was really, really tough. The program helped us deal with each other."
Created with the help of some of Hamilton's best child experts, the Parenting Partnership has the potential to revolutionize how couples prepare for a baby.
Instead of an eight-week crash course in contractions, diapering and breast feeding, they get two and a half years of training.
It starts with prenatal classes and turns into a parenting course that runs from newborn to toddler. The idea is to train for parenthood the way you're educated for a career.
"It's the most important job you do," said Sarah Patterson, co-director of McMaster University's Child Life Program.
But most of us start the first day completely unprepared.
"Parenting is something people just do but are never educated on," she said. "There are so many myths out there and a lot are poor parenting."
Learning the ropes is harder than ever now because grandparents, who were the teachers in the past, more often than not, live in different cities.
"We've gone from having extended family around to help you with parenting questions to nothing," said Dr. Alison Niccols, director of the infant-parent program at McMaster Children's Hospital and a consultant for the Parenting Partnership.
"People assume it's instinctive."
But as any parent knows, babies don't come with an instruction manual.
Filling that gap is crucial considering the lifelong consequences of bad parenting.
About 95 per cent of brain development happens in the first three years of life. Getting it wrong can have an impact on society.
"What happens in these years builds the brain for how healthy you're going to be and how well you're going to learn," said Dr. Jean Clinton, Hamilton child psychiatrist and world-renowned early childhood expert.
"That's at the real heart of why these parenting programs are so important. If we don't get these early years and the parenting relationship right, we're going to be spending lots of dollars on mental health later."
So far, Clinton thinks we're failing.
She points out that one in five Ontario children require mental health services. One in four Hamilton kids come to school without the skills to learn.
"We've got a crisis," she says.
"If 25 per cent of our children had a virus that was going to affect them for their entire life, we would have a huge outcry. We'd say this is an epidemic.
"In fact, that's what we have. But because it's not visible like a cough or a broken leg we don't have the outcry."
She says it's long overdue for the village to step up and do its part in raising the child and that's why she supported the Parenting Partnership created by national charity Invest In Kids.
She is on the board of advisers for the charity, which researches, educates and advocates ways to be better parents.
"We need to value parenting," she said. "Families feel hugely stressed, on the go all the time. Unfortunately children and the needs of children fall further and further down the line. We need to focus on the value of the family to be successful."
That's where the Parenting Partnership comes in.
The free course teaches couples having their first baby how to make it as a family.
They learn to nurture their marriage as well as their child.
They're taught to work together, going so far as to divvy up responsibilities before the baby is born so one doesn't carry an unfair load.
They're given realistic expectations of parenthood and tools to handle the stress.
They still get the basics -- from how to hold a newborn to coping with a toddler's temper tantrum. But going one step further to building a strong family is what attracted the Winters to the program.
"It's more than just learning how to breath through contractions," said Christine. "Their goal is to get us to be positive parents together, working as a team. It has boosted both of our confidence levels and communication with each other."
Without a doubt, they say it's how they passed that first trying test of parenthood.
"I think a lot of moms would want to take charge," said Christine.
"To pass her off and go to the bedroom and shut the door was hard, but I knew my husband was perfectly capable. The program gave me the confidence to do that."
The results can be seen immediately. Patterson, who works with kids in hospitals, says she can easily tell if a newborn is getting good parenting even when mom and dad aren't in the room.
She sees kids at their most stressed when they're getting medical procedures. Babies who cry long and hard know their parents will come to the rescue. Those that don't, aren't getting the comfort they need.
"People think parenting starts when the baby can talk, but it starts at infancy or even prenatal," she said.
"If you wait until the child is three or four, by than it's too late."
It's why she prefers the Parenting Partnership's way of providing training in one course that runs continuously from prenatal to age two to the current approach of leaving it up to parents to seek out programs each with its own topic and duration.
"It's not easy," she says about the status quo. "There's not a lot of resources for parents and they have to investigate it."
But the Parenting Partnership's biggest strength, could also be it's downfall.
"A lot of parents want quick fixes," said Patterson. "It's so intense you're not going to get your average person. I think participation will be hard."
Even if the program can attract parents, keeping them on board for that long will be tough.
"It's hard to even commit to an eight-session course," said Niccols, who researches the effect of parenting courses.
"People's lives get busy. They're planning to try to keep parents engaged over that whole time period and I wish them luck good luck with that."
The test run has shown it to be such a problem that the program is being delayed for a year to make changes.
The Winters are one of 100 Ontario couples piloting the Parenting Partnership and giving feedback. They go to regular face-to-face group sessions and do lessons individually on the Internet on their own time.
"The time crunch is the universal issue," said Greg Lubimiv, director of parent education for the Parenting Partnership.
"There is so much to learn and how do you fit that into the life of a busy parent."
When they find the time, the couples say they love what they're learning.
"Parents are lacking in both skills and confidence right across the board," said Lubimiv.
"There's so much information coming at them and so many demands on their time and life that they're feeling lost.
"If you look at the (national) research, we found in pregnancy about 45 per cent of moms and dads feel quite confident about the parent they're going to become and that drops to about 18 per cent after the baby is born. There is this cliff that occurs when reality strikes."
It's worse on dads who rarely take part in parenting courses or support groups after the baby is born.
"It's really important for us to look at engaging dads for the long term," said Lubimiv. "They tend to feel very uncomfortable in that first year to two years of life.
"What they don't know is that women are just as uncomfortable. But women have the load because men have generally been saying, 'I'm not sure what I'm doing or how to do it, but my wife knows so she'll do it."
For the Winters, it has been a crucial lesson.
They graduated from the prenatal to parenting phase of the course when their daughter Abby Christine was born Dec. 22.
Christine has a degree in early childhood education and teaches drama for a living so her construction worker husband felt inadequate in comparison.
"I was more overwhelmed," he said. "This is brand new to me."
But he's learning it's brand new to his wife, too.
"I may have the educational background, but I've never had a newborn living in my house. We're a team in this and I thought it was good for them to point that out to us.
"I think women tend to take over so our husbands don't have a chance to learn. It's learned helplessness.
"I see him as an equal partner now."
By far, the biggest draw of the Parenting Partnership has been a chance to connect with other first-time parents.
"We know from research that having very young children is the most isolating time in an adult's life," said Niccols.
"That peer network can be really important for emotional support. They would have potentially lasting relationships."
Expecting parents can't get into the program right now. But it's scheduled to start up again about the fall of 2008.
It will be offered for a limited time in Hamilton, Burlington, Niagara, Toronto, Etobicoke, Scarborough, Brampton, Thunder Bay, Kenora and Ottawa.
Invest In Kids will run the program as a study with the hope of convincing governments and public health departments to adopt it.
"It's like going to university or college for free," said Christine.
Her husband goes one step further.
"I think it should be mandatory."
Invest in Kids is a national charity aimed at improving parenting through education, research and support. It was started in 1993 by volunteers, most of whom were parents. Now it is led by a board of directors made up of business professionals and a board of advisers who are childhood development experts, including Hamilton's Dr. Jean Clinton.
Funded by corporations, its philosophy is that parents should comfort, play with and teach their children.
HOW IT WORKS
- Weekly online sessions for 2 1/2 years, starting in pregnancy and ending when the baby turns two. Online sessions can be done anytime during the week. They're a combination of articles, games, scenarios and activities.
- Face-to-face sessions starting in pregnancy and ending when the baby is one.
- The class consists of 12 couples or fewer who are having their first baby. The sessions are once a week during the prenatal section. When the baby is first born, there is a dad's-only session followed by a mom's-only session. After that, it's once a month together.
- Online support group with the other couples in the course. The website has dedicated space for couples to share experiences, questions and tips.
Reprinted with permission from The Hamilton Spectator.