Forum Will Offer Help And Insight

Wed., June 28, 2000

By Doug Floyd dougf@spokesman.com

When divorce made Bret Whitesides a single parent six years ago, he knew he needed new skills. Fortunately, the community had resources to help him - and to help him help his children - through a difficult time.

Bret shared the experience in Tuesday’s installment of “Key Moments,” a series of articles about the most challenging stages of childhood, such as a divorce. The series, running through July 16, makes it clear that growing up is complicated - an adventure for which any family, not just single parents, can use help.

So, if you want to know more about successful parenting, a public forum this Thursday will interest you. It will be from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. at the Northeast Community Center, 4001 N. Cook. Eight specialists from a mixture of callings will join the audience in a conversation about helping kids grow up successfully. Admission is free and child care will be provided but it is necessary to register. Call 744-5666 or 1-800-789-0029, ext. 5666. (A second forum will be held from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m., Tuesday, July 11, at the newspaper’s North Idaho office, 608 Northwest Blvd., Coeur d’Alene.)

This week’s forum is based on the conviction that parents’ job is too important to expect them to do it in isolation. Everyone in the community has a stake in the well-being of children and in their development into productive adults. Any time parents, other citizens and specialists can come together to swap insights it will make the community healthier. It’s for good reason that the Search Institute, renowned for its findings about child development, encourages all facets of the community - churches, government, media, business, neighborhoods - to share the responsibility for creating assets for youth development.

Thursday’s panelists represent many of those community institutions. They’ve had diverse encounters with children. Some have worked with kids in the courtroom, some in the classroom. Some have tended to youngsters’ emotional needs and some to their spiritual needs. Some are care givers, some are counselors. All have vital information to share. By itself, however, all that expertise adds up to only a one-way conversation. Parents have their own experiences to share and their own questions to pose. That’s how dialogue begins. That’s how knowledge grows. That’s how communities grow healthier.

The Spokesman-Review is glad the experts will be there Thursday evening. We hope you will too.

Local journalism is essential.

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