Parenting skills

READ Saskatoon is hosting an upcoming workshop on raising boys, Boy Smarts Action Talk.
Barry MacDonald is a skilled educator, author and registered clinical counsellor. He will be presenting the workshop at Circle Drive Alliance Church, 3035 Preston Ave. S, on Sept. 17, from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m.

Boys typically have a more difficult time than girls do at sitting, listening, writing or negotiating with peers. In recent years, they have consistently trailed girls in academic performance, graduation rates and at taking on extra-curricular leadership roles.

The presentation will examine what’s happening under the surface when boys’ scholastic or emotional development is stalled and they compensate with shows of “hyper-masculinity.” Participants will learn “how to talk so boys will listen and listen so boys will talk.”

Aboriginal parents are the focus of a couple of new Encyclopedia on Early Childhood Development articles.

In “Voices from the Field – Poverty and Pregnancy in Aboriginal Communities”, nursing student Lisa Duchesneau provides both aboriginal and health sector perspective.

She looks at some of the challenges. In Quebec, for example, she points out First Nations people are three to five times more likely than the rest of Canadians to experience poverty, mistreatment and placement in foster care from earliest childhood on. She also points out the positive impacts as well as ongoing challenges when the situation for low-income families improves.

A new video message about the dangers of drinking during pregnancy has a simple message for its intended audience: Thank you, Mom.

The short public service announcement can be seen on YouTube.

David McGrane is an assistant professor in political studies at St. Thomas More College and the University of Saskatchewan. Currently, he is studying how parental leave and child care supports and services differ across Canada, as well as why this might be.

He also had the chance to learn first-hand about the challenges that parents of young children face while he was on parental leave, taking care of his young daughter.

David sat down with kidSKAN recently for a personal interview about what it’s like to be a new father and why this experience can differ drastically depending on what province you live in.

Quebec is taking a step toward reducing work-life conflict for parents with young children with its work-family balance certification program.

The province has an accredited body to oversee standards that will allow companies large and small to become certified as offering employees options to balance their work and home lives. The program is set up along the same lines as environmental certification programs for companies that want to meet environmental standards.

Quebec’s initiative was featured in a recent Globe & Mail’s business section story.

KidsFirst is a federally-funded, provincially-run intervention program that gives services and support to vulnerable families in Saskatchewan through home visiting. It was launched in 2002 and is offered in nine areas of the province identified as having “high needs.”

Last fall, an in-depth three-year evaluation of KidsFirst was completed, and kidSKAN has produced a short video for its YouTube channel that introduces KidsFirst and the evaluation. This evaluation was conducted by the Saskatchewan Population Health and Evaluation Research Unit, in partnership with the Saskatchewan government, and it was funded by the Canadian Population Health Initiative, the Government of Saskatchewan, MITACS and the College of Medicine at the University of Saskatchewan.