Episode Transcript
[00:00:07] Speaker A: And welcome back to just say something.
[00:00:10] Speaker B: And our weekly podcast, just say something, was founded as a means to educate parents about some of the issues and.
[00:00:23] Speaker A: Things that were going on with their.
[00:00:26] Speaker B: Teenagers, either at home or at school.
[00:00:31] Speaker A: And so for this organization, just say something.
[00:00:37] Speaker B: We were built on educating parents about those particular issues.
[00:00:45] Speaker A: And so today we're having a conversation.
[00:00:49] Speaker B: With Lynn Hooper, who is our parenting coordinator.
[00:00:56] Speaker A: Now, Lynn has been with us since.
[00:01:00] Speaker B: The mid ninety s and has started.
[00:01:06] Speaker A: Our parenting program from absolutely.
[00:01:12] Speaker B: Nothing to what it is today.
[00:01:16] Speaker A: And so as I'm welcoming Lynn to.
[00:01:22] Speaker B: This particular podcast, just know that with.
[00:01:27] Speaker A: Lynn, today is one of four conversations that Lyn and I will be having.
[00:01:34] Speaker B: With each other over the next four weeks.
During each week, we will talk about a different program we have here for parents.
So again, Lynn has built our program.
[00:01:52] Speaker A: And I would put her up against.
[00:01:56] Speaker B: Anybody else that is in this line of work.
[00:02:01] Speaker A: One of the things I want you.
[00:02:02] Speaker B: To remember is we are not counselors, we are not therapists. We are here to teach parents caregivers skills as a means to manage the.
[00:02:20] Speaker A: Day to day life that we all have.
[00:02:23] Speaker B: And that seems to get busier and busier.
Even with technology, there's no end in sight.
So with that, Lynn, I would like to thank you for being here with me today and our conversation about one of our programs.
And so I'm glad you're here.
[00:02:50] Speaker A: And so tell me a little bit.
[00:02:53] Speaker B: Why you love parenting programs so much.
[00:03:00] Speaker C: When I first started this position, first of all, I was a parent, and I think that's the most important thing.
[00:03:09] Speaker D: I have one daughter that was in that time just graduating from high school.
[00:03:15] Speaker E: And off to college.
[00:03:20] Speaker C: I guess the reason why I love this job so much, it's really a.
[00:03:23] Speaker D: Mission because you are helping parents gain skills that will help them raise children.
[00:03:33] Speaker C: That will not go down a road of destruction.
[00:03:35] Speaker D: Maybe help them give them skills that will help them to prevent a lot of things that their children can get into that maybe they don't know how to.
[00:03:47] Speaker C: So really, it has been, for me.
[00:03:50] Speaker D: A mission to help parents. And that's totally the way I look at it. And you don't reach them all, but you do help a lot of them along the way.
[00:04:00] Speaker B: All right, thanks, Lynn.
[00:04:03] Speaker A: And today we're going to talk about.
[00:04:07] Speaker B: Parenting wisely, which is one of our.
[00:04:10] Speaker A: Programs that we offer. And again, this is one of four conversations that we're going to be having.
[00:04:16] Speaker B: Over the next several weeks.
[00:04:18] Speaker A: And so, Lynn, when it comes to parenting wisely, give our listening audience a.
[00:04:26] Speaker B: Brief overview or description about who this program is for and some of the.
[00:04:33] Speaker A: Things that you teach within this program.
[00:04:37] Speaker E: All right.
[00:04:38] Speaker D: Parenting wisely is a parenting class that.
[00:04:43] Speaker C: Is for parents to have children from.
[00:04:45] Speaker D: Birth to nine years old.
[00:04:48] Speaker C: It is a lot of basic parenting.
[00:04:52] Speaker E: Skills that we help, all of it.
[00:04:56] Speaker D: Being prevention, because we know parents are.
[00:04:59] Speaker C: That'S what we are.
[00:05:01] Speaker D: We raise our children to prevent them from doing, getting into a lot of things.
[00:05:07] Speaker C: So we give a lot of basic.
[00:05:09] Speaker D: Parenting skills to parents. And a lot of the parents tell us that we help them because a lot of young parents are overwhelmed with parenting.
[00:05:21] Speaker C: They have these children, they bring these.
[00:05:23] Speaker D: Children in the world and they don't have a clue how to raise them.
[00:05:27] Speaker C: They really don't know.
[00:05:29] Speaker D: We don't get a manual when our.
[00:05:32] Speaker C: Children are born on how to raise them. So the skills that we can offer here, some of the things that they.
[00:05:38] Speaker D: Always tell me on evaluations is you.
[00:05:41] Speaker C: Help me when I feel overwhelmed being a parent and not knowing how to.
[00:05:47] Speaker D: Handle different situations, my baby, with my preschooler, with my elementary school student, and give me a lot of good skills that help me to be the best parent that I can be.
[00:06:02] Speaker B: Okay, great. So you talk about basic parenting skills.
[00:06:07] Speaker A: Can you go over some of those? What are some of the basic parenting.
[00:06:12] Speaker B: Skills as identified within this particular program?
[00:06:18] Speaker D: Yeah. Some of the basic things that we.
[00:06:21] Speaker C: Try to help parents with in this.
[00:06:23] Speaker D: Class are, number one, saying I love you.
We live in a society today where.
[00:06:32] Speaker C: A lot of these parents were raised.
[00:06:35] Speaker D: With parents that never told them that.
[00:06:37] Speaker C: They love them and they don't know.
[00:06:40] Speaker D: How to and they don't tell their children that. And one of the things very important in raising children, you got to let these kids know you love them. You got to tell them, of course.
[00:06:50] Speaker C: You parent the way you do to help them understand that you love them.
[00:06:55] Speaker D: But you got to tell them. So helping them learn, a lot of.
[00:06:58] Speaker C: Them, now, a lot of them know.
[00:06:59] Speaker D: This, it's redundant to some of them, but with some parents, they need help in that area.
[00:07:05] Speaker C: So that is one thing we do a lot with. How important it is to tell your.
[00:07:10] Speaker D: Children you love them every day.
[00:07:12] Speaker C: And the three most important times they.
[00:07:14] Speaker D: Need that are in the morning when you wake them up, smile on your face when they come home from school as elementary kids and when they go to bed at night, when you book.
[00:07:26] Speaker C: Them in, how important that is for them to know that so they have.
[00:07:29] Speaker D: Good dreams when they go to sleep at night.
[00:07:32] Speaker C: Some of the things, other things we talk about how important it is to have a safe environment to raise your.
[00:07:38] Speaker D: Kids in and some of the ways.
[00:07:41] Speaker C: That you can make your environment very.
[00:07:43] Speaker D: Clean and very accessible to raising your.
[00:07:49] Speaker C: Kids so that they have a lot.
[00:07:50] Speaker D: Of freedom to do things and they won't get hurt.
[00:07:53] Speaker C: One of the things that we've been talking about now for a couple of.
[00:07:56] Speaker D: Years, and we're seeing this a lot.
[00:07:59] Speaker C: In doctors offices and places, we help them learn the three ails of medications.
[00:08:05] Speaker E: Look it up. Learn and lock them up.
[00:08:11] Speaker C: Those are medications that you give to your children when you give them medications.
[00:08:17] Speaker D: You need to lock them up. After you give them to them. You need to look up what the.
[00:08:23] Speaker C: Ingredients are in those medications, and you learn a lot. You learn what works against each other or what works together. And the different medications that your child takes. For instance, they could be on a prescription med, and then they get a cold or something, go to the drugstore and buy an over the counter medicine.
[00:08:45] Speaker D: It's really good to know what works.
[00:08:48] Speaker C: With the ingredient in that over the counter medicine.
[00:08:52] Speaker D: How does it work with a prescription that that child is on?
[00:08:57] Speaker C: Another thing that we do, we give them resources, a lot of resources, and we even give out medication bottles that they can lock up so their kids can't get into them without. And a lot of kids, especially older.
[00:09:11] Speaker D: Kids, they will do that and try.
[00:09:13] Speaker C: To be curious and get into their parents med.
[00:09:16] Speaker D: So we talk a lot about that.
[00:09:17] Speaker C: We spend a lot of time talking about secondhand smoke and how it affects your children. And one of the things in a lot of the parents that come through.
[00:09:27] Speaker D: My class, they either smoke or vape.
[00:09:31] Speaker C: So helping them understand how secondhand smoke.
[00:09:35] Speaker D: Affects their children is one of the.
[00:09:37] Speaker C: Things that we do here, and it really does help them.
[00:09:40] Speaker D: And then we offer to them an opportunity for them to quit, and we.
[00:09:45] Speaker C: Help them with that when they are.
[00:09:47] Speaker D: Willing or when they want to.
[00:09:50] Speaker C: Another thing that's important, we help these.
[00:09:53] Speaker D: Parents understand their eating habits, their children's.
[00:09:57] Speaker C: Eating habits, how important it is to sit down at a table and eat meals together.
[00:10:05] Speaker D: And then we talk a lot about.
[00:10:09] Speaker C: Have no rules in your home.
[00:10:10] Speaker D: You have a lot of chaos.
[00:10:13] Speaker C: So we try to help these parents learn how to have rules in their.
[00:10:17] Speaker D: Home, how to follow through, to make sure those rules are obeyed, and to.
[00:10:24] Speaker C: Start with consequences as they move along.
[00:10:27] Speaker D: And as they get older, so you can be prepared for consequences when you really have to use them, especially as they move. Adolescent teen years we talk a lot about anger and how you control your.
[00:10:42] Speaker C: Anger in dealing with your children.
We talk about how anger affects your children and a lot of parents don't.
[00:10:49] Speaker D: Even realize this because they have a lot of anger issues, and they don't.
[00:10:56] Speaker C: Necessarily so much take them out on.
[00:10:58] Speaker D: Their children, but they live in an.
[00:11:01] Speaker C: Environment where there's a lot of anger.
[00:11:04] Speaker D: That causes a lot of conflict.
[00:11:06] Speaker C: And a lot of times, parents do.
[00:11:08] Speaker D: Not know how their children are affected by their anger.
[00:11:12] Speaker C: So we give them skills to help them know that and so they can.
[00:11:15] Speaker D: Look at their child and understand and see what they might be doing to their child.
[00:11:20] Speaker C: Another thing that we cover in this class is we talk about their values.
[00:11:26] Speaker D: Their morals, and, of course, we don't.
[00:11:29] Speaker C: Tell them what their morals or what their values in life should be, because everyone has a different one. But we encourage them to write them.
[00:11:37] Speaker D: Down, prioritize them, and then we do an activity that helps them teach their children what their values are, to give.
[00:11:46] Speaker C: Them a start in life. And we know that values are not.
[00:11:50] Speaker D: Written in stone, but they need to start somewhere. So we try to help them teach.
[00:11:55] Speaker C: The values you have in life, teach.
[00:11:58] Speaker D: Those to your children.
[00:12:00] Speaker C: We also cover how important it is to sit down and eat meals together.
[00:12:04] Speaker D: And begin the process, especially as your kids get a little older, of having family meetings in your family to talk about things, children. So those are just some of the.
[00:12:17] Speaker C: Things that we cover in our five.
[00:12:19] Speaker D: Week, ten hour class.
[00:12:22] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:12:22] Speaker B: Wow.
[00:12:23] Speaker A: That's a lot of information to unpack. So I really do identify with the.
[00:12:30] Speaker B: Family meal part, because I remember growing up, we ate probably 99% of our meals together as a family, even to the point of waiting for our dad to get home at night before we, as a family sat down and had supper. So that family is at the core of what we do.
[00:12:58] Speaker A: Lynn, in our time remaining, is there.
[00:13:02] Speaker B: A story that you can share that maybe one of the parents or caregivers came back to you and said, you.
[00:13:13] Speaker A: Know, this happened as a result of.
[00:13:16] Speaker B: Me attending this class.
[00:13:18] Speaker C: Oh, yes, I could tell you many. But one I would like to tell you just in talking with what we've.
[00:13:23] Speaker D: Been talking about here, having meals together in a class that I had before Christmas.
[00:13:30] Speaker C: I had a couple in my class.
[00:13:31] Speaker E: Who.
[00:13:34] Speaker D: They had three small children, and.
[00:13:37] Speaker C: Then he had been married before, and.
[00:13:39] Speaker D: He had a teenage daughter, so they had to make room for her in their home. They had to give up their area where they sat to eat.
[00:13:51] Speaker C: And he said, really, I have to be honest with you.
[00:13:54] Speaker D: We didn't realize the importance of eating.
[00:13:56] Speaker C: Meals together, and we really did not.
[00:13:58] Speaker D: Sit down and do that.
[00:14:00] Speaker C: So that was not hard to give that space up.
[00:14:03] Speaker D: But after being in the class. And I talked to them and told them how important it is when you.
[00:14:10] Speaker C: Eat meals to sit down together and eat meals. But with them, I told them, since you don't have a table, let me.
[00:14:17] Speaker E: Share a way that you do that.
[00:14:19] Speaker C: When you are eating a meal, sit.
[00:14:22] Speaker D: Your children on the couch and you.
[00:14:24] Speaker C: And your husband sit in front of.
[00:14:26] Speaker D: Them, maybe it with a tv tray.
[00:14:29] Speaker E: And turn the tv off and sit and talk together while you eat.
[00:14:36] Speaker D: Share things that are important to family.
[00:14:40] Speaker C: Important to each other.
[00:14:42] Speaker D: That's kind of how you begin to have family meetings. But one of the real positive things.
[00:14:49] Speaker C: About eating meals together as a family.
[00:14:52] Speaker D: Is, and I'm going to quote a stat, we know that families that eat meals together raise children that are a lot less likely to become involved.
That is a statistic. And we live by that because that is very true. And just like with Phil, I was.
[00:15:16] Speaker C: Raised in a family where we sat.
[00:15:18] Speaker D: Down together every night and had dinner.
[00:15:20] Speaker C: And that was most important to us.
[00:15:23] Speaker D: And those memories, memories that I have of that.
[00:15:26] Speaker C: And that is where we had our family meetings.
[00:15:29] Speaker D: Today you kind of teach parents how.
[00:15:31] Speaker E: To have family meetings.
[00:15:32] Speaker C: But anyway, the story, as it goes.
[00:15:34] Speaker D: On, as I kept telling parents how.
[00:15:38] Speaker C: Important it was to eat meals together.
[00:15:41] Speaker D: I never will forget the next Tuesday night when they walked into my class.
[00:15:47] Speaker C: The first thing he said, hey, we got a table. We bought a table. And I never will forget that. And he shared with us, he said.
[00:15:55] Speaker D: We do realize how important that is.
[00:15:58] Speaker C: So we did find room and we have a table.
[00:16:02] Speaker D: And today I can tell you we.
[00:16:05] Speaker C: Have already started sitting down at the.
[00:16:07] Speaker D: Table and sharing our meals together as a family. With the tv off.
[00:16:14] Speaker B: Yeah, having that tv off. We couldn't have it on either when I was growing up.
[00:16:19] Speaker A: So I know you're getting ready to start a new class. So do you have classes? What, every five weeks?
[00:16:26] Speaker B: Are you on a rotation?
[00:16:28] Speaker A: And then if I'm listening out there.
[00:16:30] Speaker B: Listening, how do I sign up and what do I need to expect?
[00:16:37] Speaker D: We get a lot of parents in.
[00:16:41] Speaker C: Our parenting classes in a lot of different ways. Of course. We love for parents just to realize they need help and call us and we give them the information of how to register to get into classes. But let me say this. Our classes are five weeks.
We start one like I am starting one tomorrow night. It will go for five consecutive weeks. It will meet on Tuesday evenings from.
[00:17:07] Speaker D: Six to 08:00 p.m. 2 hours per session.
[00:17:11] Speaker C: And to be in that class, you have to attend all five sessions. You have to do the work that is required, which certainly isn't hard.
To get a certificate, you have to take an exit test, and you have.
[00:17:26] Speaker D: To do a plan of how you will use some of the skills that.
[00:17:32] Speaker C: We cover in the class. And I tell my parents, I don't want you to tell me what you learned.
[00:17:37] Speaker D: I want you to tell me, pick.
[00:17:39] Speaker C: Out three skills that we have covered.
[00:17:41] Speaker E: And we cover a lot.
[00:17:42] Speaker C: And tell me how you are planning.
[00:17:45] Speaker D: To use those skills in raising your children.
[00:17:49] Speaker C: And I always get a lot of.
[00:17:51] Speaker D: My parents to use rules because they'll.
[00:17:53] Speaker C: Say, you know, we haven't had a lot of rules in our home.
[00:17:56] Speaker D: We realize that was important.
[00:17:59] Speaker C: So they talk about that and how we will start having rules in our.
[00:18:03] Speaker D: Home and how we'll talk to our kids about the rules.
[00:18:07] Speaker C: And then we go on and I help them learn how to follow through, to make sure their rules are obeyed and then begin to put some kind.
[00:18:14] Speaker D: Of consequence in place if they do not obey those rules.
[00:18:19] Speaker C: So the classes are run five weeks at a time. So what you do, if you're interested.
[00:18:24] Speaker D: In one of our classes, you call.
[00:18:26] Speaker C: Our organization, which Phil will give you.
[00:18:29] Speaker D: The number in just a register.
[00:18:31] Speaker C: We give you the information of how to go online and register for the class. If you are a Greenville county resident.
[00:18:40] Speaker D: And this is really very good, and I love this, you can attend the classes at no charge.
[00:18:48] Speaker C: If you are a Greenville county resident.
[00:18:51] Speaker E: The classes are free.
[00:18:53] Speaker C: So you call, we give you the information of how to go online and.
[00:18:57] Speaker D: Register for the class, and we will.
[00:18:59] Speaker C: Put you in the class. If we have one already going on and we're like in the third session.
[00:19:06] Speaker D: Then you'll have to wait till we start again after this one completes.
[00:19:10] Speaker C: And then you'll be in that class. We will give you all the information.
[00:19:14] Speaker D: You need, directions tell you everything you need for the classes when you register for them.
[00:19:21] Speaker A: Okay?
[00:19:22] Speaker B: And that phone number to call to register is area code 864-467-4099 or you're.
[00:19:33] Speaker A: More than welcome to find out more information and the schedule for our parenting.
[00:19:38] Speaker B: Wisely classes on our website at ww justaysomethingsc.org.
[00:19:49] Speaker A: Well, next week I'll have Lynn back and we'll be diving into our parenting.
[00:19:55] Speaker B: Program back in control.
Trust me, you don't want to miss this one.
[00:20:02] Speaker A: Well, Lynn, I want to thank you for spending time with me today on this podcast. And I'm excited about our conversation next.
[00:20:10] Speaker B: Week regarding back in control. Thanks.
