The Course

If you knew you could provide a way to prevent school violence, youth suicide or drug abuse, and gang involvement-one family at a time-would you take action?

What if you could change your community through every family you helped?

What is the COMMON GROUND Parent-Teen Course and What Makes it Unique?

How many times have you read a great book on parenting and then tried to implement what you read without great results? The principles sounded great but they just didn't translate into real-world application.

Master trainers acknowledge that educational courses using role-plays, demonstrations, and coaching of real-life scenarios anchor the learning principles and provide more opportunity for behavior changes. This is the format for the COMMON GROUND Parent-Teen Relationship Building Course. Both parents and teens attend the six-week course. Much of the time they are taught separately and then brought together to practice what they have learned, while being coached by the group and the instructors to build confidence and promote success.

COMMON GROUND is theory-driven-based on the knowledge that parents and teens have a great deal in common. What often keeps us from acknowledging this are strong emotions that drive the teens and strong fears that drive the parents. When these core issues are addressed honestly, openly, and respectfully, each party begins to see the other from a different perspective.

The course is designed to help both parent and teen learn to slow down their communications in order to fully listen to each other and to strive to understand differing points of view. When this happens, common ground IS found and something magical happens in these relationships-a deeper bonding occurs.

Our instructors teach parents to approach their teenager from a position of letting go of their need to "fix" him or her and to set firm boundaries and to communicate clear expectations. To parallel that principle, the teenagers are educated on letting go of their need to view their parent as THE enemy, and to be open to viewing them as people who also need encouragement and support from their families. No other parent training course approaches these emotions that under gird these vital relationships.

The course explores the parent-teen relationship from a perspective of:

• unconditional love balanced by clear expectations
• examining conflicts and the means to their resolution
• teaching skills to lessen the developmentally normal power struggles
• replacing retributions with setting boundaries and consistently maintaining them
• exposing the underlying beliefs each holds about the other
• fine-tuning the communication techniques already in place while offering new ones to enhance cooperation and mutual respect
• compassionate, effective ways to cope with anger, depression and the threat of suicide.

The COMMON GROUND course is taught in communities across the U.S. and Canada. It is a two-hour per week, six-week parent-teen experience offering skills to parents and youth to support trusting family environments.

Parents are taught by other adults and certified teen assistants to learn skills such as:

• Listening and paraphrasing so teens really "talk" to you
• Barriers that prevent teens from "hearing" you
• Setting clear, loving, and firm boundaries
• Win-win negotiation
• Setting logical consequences
• How to shift your parenting style to have less "control" and more "influence"
• Creating an environment that sends the message that it is ok to talk about strong emotions and that you are supportive of what your teen is experiencing

Teens are taught by adults and peers and experience learning situations that:

• Enhance their trust in their own instincts
• Increase their connection with positive adult role-models
• Teach them how to set clear boundaries
• Offer them opportunities to ask for what they want in ways that influence and communicate respect
• Help them see that they are responsible for their choices and the positive and negative consequences that result
• Provide affirmation that they are not alone in how they feel or with the tough situations that they face daily with peers, teachers, and life decisions

If you don't see a course near you, please consider attending one of our trainings where you will learn the skills first-hand. You can then bring the course to your community as your own business or incorporate the skills into your family life.