Parenting and Prison Can Mix
Teaching Parenting Skills in Prison Offers Challenges and Hope
Incarceration rates continue to rise in this country, and many of the men in prison are fathers. In one Midwestern facility, parenting classes offer help and hope.
A recent statistic cited in the Washington Post (February, 2008) says that one out of every 100 Americans is now incarcerated. Many of those in prison are parents. Programs have been developed to aid incarcerated fathers to develop coping skills to deal with their children both while in prison and afterward. Teaching such classes offers the hope that the recidivism rate for such men will be reduced.
An Example of How It Works
Barbara Rasmussen is a wife, mother, and teacher of the unique Parenting classes offered by the Racine Correctional Institution, Sturtevant, Wisconsin, which holds approximately 1,500 inmates whose chances of recidivism are high.
Dealing with these young men requires the ability to understand the world they come from. For an inmate learning for the first time how to interact with his child, it can be a confusing message, since their value system – and they do have one – differs from what others might consider “right.”
Learning Right from Wrong
In parenting classes, real world problems can emerge and offer a chance for a teaching moment. For example, Barbara tells the story of one little girl who refused to put her coat on during a family visit from her father.
The usual methods - arguing, demanding, punishing - were not enough to convince her. Then the father, remembering a talk about how mirroring behavior works, made a great show of putting on his coat, saying, “I’m putting on mine, can you put on yours, too?” In moments, the girl complied cheerfully. Reporting on this result later, he told Barbara, “This s—t works!”
Making the Lesson Suit the Subject
Parenting classes are divided into three age-related sections: prenatal to preschool, five to twelve, and teenagers. Special emphasis for older children deals with the reality of an incarcerated father.
Each section deals with its own unique needs, and that includes the perception of the child’s mother. In the world outside, women are often dismissed as sex objects, interchangeable and unimportant. But with new insights into a different mindset, many of these men can learn to appreciate and respect their wives or girlfriends, contrary as it is to the worldview they knew. While no family interaction takes place in the prison classroom, classes are geared for the day those doors open and the man is home again.
Additional Programs Are Available for Incarcerated Fathers
Additional programs such as Inside/Out Dads give men a chance to learn different approaches to the parenting process, examining the values they want to see in their own children and how it relates to their own actions. The hope is that they will have new attitudes and behaviors when they get out.
The Inside/Out Dads curriculum is designed by the National Fatherhood Initiative whose web site is www.fatherhood.org.
FatherRead©, another program, gives Dads an opportunity to be videotaped reading a book to their children, and includes projects that teach coping skills for when the men return home and the kids are being … well, kids.
Lessons Can Change Outcomes and Attitudes
One inmate, standing well over six feet tall, once remarked to Barbara that he never thought he would ever be in a position to ask someone to “pass the pink glitter, please.” She is hoping he’ll be in a position to ask even more interesting questions when he’s Outside.
