yblive, Autumn 2009 - The Last Word

Hello everybody my name is Christine Fitzgerald and I completed the Incredible Years Parent course at the end of June 2009 along with a group of lovely girls who are all wonderful mothers.

The Incredible Years has worked very well for me.  It gave me a whole new outlook on rearing my kids.  When I first started the course I basically was looking to tone down my kids’ behaviour and all the things that come with it, like punishment or time-out.  All I wanted to know was the best way to change the bad behaviour.

As a single mother I had lost or even forgotten how to have fun.  If it wasn’t enough to feed them, dress them, clean up and shop for them the monotony of motherhood had taken over.  I wasn’t appreciating them when they were being good.  They were great but I never said it and I never said “good job” “well done” or “that’s great”.  I only focussed on the bad.

This is when the Incredible Years programme started to show me that my behaviour was just as bad as the kids!  Through the programme I learned to communicate better with my kids.  The sticker charts that I didn’t have much faith in turned out to be a great visual aid that really helped my kids want to do better.  But the biggest thing that I took from the programme was to remember to comment and praise on their good behaviour and to follow through with consequences.  I have learned to try not to focus so much on what they are doing wrong and to show them that I do notice when they are good.  Basically I have learned that until I changed my own thoughts and behaviour nothing else will change.

I am really glad that I got the opportunity to do the programme it has given me a different look on being a mother and I have met some wonderful people and made some good friends. 

My name is Lynda.  I did the Incredible Years programme in 2008.  Myself, Christine and some other parents who had done the programme met a little while ago to reflect on what about Incredible Years worked well for us.  We all found it to be a positive experience.
 
Each parents group starts with giving ‘homework’ feedback on how the week has been. It was a way of expressing our difficulties and achievements and having our opinions respected and was a very nice way of building our self esteem.  The sharing of experiences made you feel like you were not having a nervous breakdown and that everyone was in the same boat.  Everyone supported each other and this was really helpful if you were a single parent.
We all found that using the sticker chart was a positive way of encouraging good behaviour.  Also using the Time-Out and consequences but most of all following through on the consequences was the hardest thing to do especially if your child keeps nagging at you to let them out when you have grounded them.  Sometimes it is easier to give in.  For me personally I heard of the Incredible Years through the school that my daughter goes to.  I decided to do the course to learn a few more parenting skills.  I found the sticker chart and the little reward bag worked well because when I came home with stickers that I received on the course my daughter would look at her chart and laugh and say “ha ha I got more stickers than you”.

Incredible Years brought the inner child out of me when I was doing the course and I felt good that I was creating a strong bond with my daughter through playing, communication, and laughter.  And praising her for all the positive things she was doing.  This course is like the manual we didn’t get when we first had the baby.

I encourage any parent I know to do the Incredible Years Basic Parents Programme!
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