As a parent, you might think you have all the answers, but, sooner or later, a question will come up about your kids that will leave you scratching your head, asking, 'how do I handle this?'

The Parent Consultation Program at Community Links in Airdrie gives parents an opportunity to ask those questions and find help for parenting children of all ages.

Alisha MacIsaac is a Parent Coach at the centre and says the program has been running for a couple of years.

"It just allows parents an opportunity to connect with somebody.  Parenting is a tough job, there's lots of questions but it doesn't have to be a question that's serious enough that you have to go to a doctor or a specialist.  It can be just needing to talk to somebody and just brainstorm some strategies about behavior or development or things like that.  We're kind of that intermediary hub that parents can connect to."

MacIsaac says parents of children of all ages come to her and she's had all types of questions.  "We get lots of questions, everything you can think of.  We work with infants who are having difficulty eating and sleeping, we work with potty training, we work with managing sibling relationships, focusing on aggression and how to manage emotions and temper tantrums.  We get the whole lot, pretty much anything that you can think of that you have a question with related to parenting or your kiddo, we've seen it."

MacIsaac believes that more parents are looking for this type of help because of how parenting has changed.  "Parenting used to be more of a collaborative effort, it used to be a group and now it's a lot more isolated.  There's a lot of scrutiny and a lot of information out there.  We get parents who can go on Google and look up a bunch of different things about parenting or they can go on a parenting group and they get a lot of criticism for how they're parenting their kids.  Sometimes it's really great nowadays to be able to have somewhere that's research-based and we get our information  from reputable sources and can give parents the correct information."

MacIsaac believes that parenting can be a wonderful and rewarding experience but says that it's normal for all parents to have questions and that's where Community Links can come in.  For more information on the Parent Consultation Program call Community Links at 403 945-3900 or email info@nrvcl.ab.ca.  

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