By Dianne Anderson

What parents used to call that old love tap, not exactly a soft upside the head tap, apparently didn’t work, or at least not for long.

Looking back on her own early parenting skills, Linda Hart thinks about how much one class she took 15 years ago helped her in raising her own children, now all grown. It was a skillset for every age and every generation.

The main lesson learned is that parents need to ditch the old school switch and not repeat ineffective ways.

“It changed my trajectory on how I was raising my kids. It also teaches how to have conversation and communication with your child and be able to come to agreement with their behavior. It’s something that you can teach a 4-year-old,” said Linda Hart, founder and executive director of the African American Health Coalition.

These days, it’s not about reaching for the whip or belt to discipline, but rather reaching kids in a way that won’t give them a lifetime of PTSD.

“Especially if you’re trying to correct them, why would you punish them?” she said. “The long term impact is that some people still remember the whippings. They’re in their 50s and 60s talking about the whippings. It was so traumatic.”

Hart, a trained facilitator of an 8-week program under the San Bernardino County Superintendent of Schools, said that parents who complete the class will get a monetary scholarship when they graduate to use as they please. Set to start at the end of the month, the class enables parents to gain skills in effective communication, discipline, and building resilience and responsibility in their children.

Back in her day, it was generally considered okay to spank, but in the class, Hart said they cover the root cause of beatings and how they were historically used to punish enslaved people. Traditionally, parenting in Africa does not use beatings as a form of discipline.

She said most kids with friends from Africa say their parents don’t whip the kids, they use the village approach.

“It takes a village to raise a child,” Hart said. “Once we explain where that particular practice came in for punishment, people usually connect and say, we did it because our parents did it and their parents did it.”

In her parenting class, a similar village approach works. Parents learn to help their kids grow up healthy and become more responsible, and look to their discipline chart to see options other than whipping. They have class assignments and sign a Memorandum of Understanding, make a pact with the child, that leads to awards.

When Hart first took the class, she saw a big difference in communication with her own children that continues even today. The method can be used for all age groups, younger and older, and that opening communication can change behavior.

“When I learned, I threw away the switch,” Hart said.

In her program, they focus on promoting good behavior, knowing that kids often act up because it’s the only way for them to get attention, even if it is negative attention. Kids may not know how to express feelings of anxiety, depression, or grief.

Even parents as adults often struggle to understand their own range of emotions.

“I think every parent should take child development because you learn at what age a child starts developing certain cognitive skills. If there was any way they could verbally express it, they would,” she said.

Held at the New Hope Family Life Center, the Healthy Perspectives program is facilitated by the African American Health Coalition. Funding is provided by the California Department of Health Care Services (DHCS) through the Children and Youth Behavioral Health Initiative (CYBHI), with grant administration and technical support from the San Bernardino County Superintendent of Schools.

Eddie Osungi McAllister, who graduated in Hart’s last cohort, said the class was life changing. She has five grown children and many grandchildren, but she said that all five of her girls have different personality types that require different communication styles.

For a while, she and one of her daughters weren’t talking, and it was very painful. But coming into Hart’s last class, she learned a new way to deal with her adult children.

Osungi McAllister, also a local former foster parent and daycare provider, was already working with good parenting tools, but she was surprised at the importance of effective communication in her own home.

She said that it’s never too late to learn.

“It was quite a bit of time I hadn’t communicated with this daughter. One day Linda gave us an assignment, and tears came to my eyes because it helped me so much,” she said. “It was a beautiful day for me. I was so happy when I took that class because it was the one thing that helped me to talk with my daughter.”

To get involved in Hart’s class, email hartl.aamhc@gmail.com, or see www.theaamhc.org.

For more resources, see https://cybhi.chhs.ca.gov/resources/.