Catalog

Parenting More Effectively
ADB Review [ January - February 2004 ]

DALAGUETE, CEBU ISLAND, PHILIPPINES

ANIMATED TALKS Child development worker Frinelinda Entera uses visual aids to get her messages across to the participants

On a mountaintop, under the sprawling branches of a tree, a dozen women and four men gather to listen to a talk on parenting and husband-wife relationships. Frinelinda Entera, a child development worker and a mother of five, was giving a Parent Effectiveness Seminar—something she has been doing for a year as part of the Early Childhood Development Project.

For the largely uneducated group, Ms. Entera uses colorful visual aids and animated discussion to communicate. She holds seminars on Wednesdays and Fridays wherever she can get an audience—on a riverbank as women wash clothes, or along a field as people work.

RURAL SEMINARS Parents—including 34-year-old Emilia Cabatu (right), a mother of nine—gather regularly to share experiences and give support to one another

Thirty-four-year-old Emilia Cabatu says she does not mind walking an hour to and from her home to attend the seminars. She says she has learned so much from Ms. Entera about raising children, such as providing oral rehydration for diarrhea, and on maintaining a good relationship with her husband.

With her is her 1-month-old son, whom she breastfeeds during the seminar. She left her other eight children at home with their father for him to share in the responsibility of parenting.

INVOLVED Fathers are encouraged to attend the seminars to learn how to share in the responsibilities of parenting

Napoleon Carungay, a 40-year-old father and farmer, says that although his five children are older, he wants to increase his knowledge on how to be a good parent. “If I were to be a father again, I would be more prepared,” he says.

To motivate parents to come to her seminars, Ms. Entera holds her talks as close to their homes as possible. Before the talks, she organizes supplemental feeding for the children as part of the seminar.

Although she makes herself accessible to others, she always returns to her own home before her husband arrives from the farm to attend to her families’ needs—and to practice what she preaches.

Over time, Ms. Entera says the participants begin to ask more questions. She believes this is a good indicator that these parents—among the poorest of the rural poor—are beginning to dream of a better life for their children.

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