Parenting guidelines and everyday discomforts

Abstract

Numerous current studies reveal serious distortions in parenting patterns, that entail obvious risks for healthy growing up. However, these patterns are naturalized, and they are not usually intervened on specifically from a community perspective. This leads to overreacting to the symptoms, and makes it difficult to attend to needs. This work presents a group intervention experience with mothers and fathers, as an example of the application of the Community Corrective Processes Methodology (ProCC) to the family and parenting sphere. This methodology has as its object of study and work the discomforts of daily life, develops the concept of Normality Assumed Health, and accumulates a wide and robust experience of more than 40 years of uninterrupted work in community intervention. The objective was defined to assess the results of the application of the ProCC Program “School for mothers and fathers”, in terms of the development of action criteria against difficulties in parenting. We worked with two groups of mothers and fathers, from two autonomous communities in Spain. A qualitative research approach was applied, systematic observation was used to record the group process and content analysis for information processing. The most significant results were that the intervention allowed them to develop tools for the decoding and resolving parenting conflicts, improving their daily bond, strengthening their adult position, and experiencing the value of group reflection for the construction of alternatives. The above also confirms the effectiveness of both the program and the method to enhance the family’s work in regulating and containing the process of growing up. These results also made it possible to identify recommendations for new lines of intervention and investigation.