The art of good parenting

Paddy Tyrell SJ is an Irish Jesuit based in Chicago. On a recent trip home he did an interview for Soulwaves, the local radio religious news syndication (formerly RNN), about his work as a facilitator in Parent Effectiveness Training (PET).

The five year-old daughter doesn't want to go to bed, the seventeen year-old son wants to drink, none of the kids want to study; parenting is not an easy job and never was. As Paddy Tyrrell SJ says, nobody gives parents a training manual with the baby and often parents can become really stretched and stressed as they try to give their children a good rearing. But Paddy has studied the skills of good parenting through effective communication and many parents benefit from his courses in Parent Effectiveness Training.

According to Paddy, PET gives parents concrete skills to help them relate to their children and adoloscents in a way that minimises conflict, encourages mutual respect, and produces good outcomes for both parent and child. Paddy stresses that it's not a psychological or counselling based approach. Instead parents are taught ways to communicate (and not communicate!) with their children, and how to resolve conflict and accomodate difference.

You can listen here to Paddy's interview where he discusses with Pat Coyle of the Jesuit Communication Centre the principles of PET and how it works.