PARENTS HELP EDUCATE CHILDREN

CHAFFEE -- New parents often have a lot of learning to do about themselves and their newborn children. People like LaDonna Bollinger like to think they help new parents become good parents.

Bollinger is a parent educator with the Parents as Teachers program in Chaffee. Herself a parent, Bollinger said she believes in the program so much that she has a parent educator come to her home.

"A lot of us who work here are in the program ourselves; that's how much we think of the program," she said.

Parents as Teachers is a free program for children under 3 offered through the public schools at Chaffee, Scott City, Kelso, Delta, and Kelly near Benton.

It involves home visits about once every six weeks by a trained state-certified parent-educator; group parent meetings about five times during the school year; and screenings to check for delays in any area of learning.

"For each home visit we bring timely information to help parents know what to look for and expect as the child grows and develops," Bollinger said. "This researched information includes topics such as language development, discipline and toilet training."

Bollinger said the goal of the program is to give parents increased knowledge of child development and improve parents' confidence in child rearing. Children in the program usually have fewer undetected incidents of hearing and vision problems, she said.

"If possible, we like to start visiting with the parents during the last trimester of pregnancy for a prenatal visit," she said. "But parents may enroll anytime before the child reaches 3 years of age."

At the beginning of the school year, the parent educators meet with a group of parents and choose topics they are interested in. Topics and speakers are then chosen for the five group meetings throughout the year. Last month's meeting focused on how much activity is too much for a toddler.

Bollinger said new parents are always welcome to attend the meetings.

Begun as a pilot program in 1981 with four school districts in the St. Louis area, Parents as Teachers was mandated by the state to be offered in all Missouri school districts by 1984. By 1986, about 10 percent of children age 3 and under in Missouri were being served by the program. State appropriations in 1989 allow about 30 percent of eligible children to be served by the program.

The program, which began in Missouri, is now in 45 districts outside the state.

"It now has spread as far as Japan, Australia, New Zealand and England," Bollinger said.

"One of the main benefits, I feel, is that the parents become more involved with their children. They know what to look for developmentally, so when their children start learning how to recognize their hands, for instance, parents know how to help them."

Bollinger said parents who become involved in Parents as Teachers often maintain a high interest in their child's education and development.

"By being aware of your child's needs at an early age, it has been found that parents usually show more interest and concern about the child's education as he enters school," said Bollinger.

The program isn't geared toward a certain social or economic group. Bollinger said some very poor families participate; but so do teachers' and doctors' families.

The parent educators are supervised by Scott City Superintendent Bob Brison.