Guiding Good Choices

a Parenting Class

Salt Lake County Youth Services will lead this 5-week course for caregivers of children ages 9–14. Learn how to guide your kid through challenging adolescent decisions and help them make good choices.

This 5-week course will cover ways you can reduce the odds your child will develop problems with depression, crime, tobacco, drugs, or alcohol.

Week 1: Getting Started: How to Prevent Drug Use in Your Family

Week 2: Setting Guidelines: How to Develop Healthy Beliefs and Clear Standards

Week 3: Managing Conflict: How to Control and Express Your Anger Constructively

Week 4: How to say no to drugs Children and parents are invited to this session. They learn skills children can use for staying out of trouble and keeping their friends, while still having fun.

Week 5: Involving Everyone: How to Strengthen Family Bonds Parents learn ways to strengthen family bonds and increase children’s involvement in their family in their teen's years. Parents also learn how to create a parent support network. 

According to Salt Lake County Youth Services:

• 4 years after the program, children in families who attended had 40.6% less alcohol use, and lower rates of trying marijuana and getting drunk.
• 10 years after the program, young adults whose parents attended had lower rates of getting drunk, experiencing alcohol-related problems, smoking cigarettes, and using illicit drugs.
• Has been shown to reduce the likelihood that experimental users will advance to heavier use, increase the likelihood that non-users will remain drug-free, reduce the likelihood that young people will commit
  delinquent acts.
• The program was found to significantly reduce the rate at which adolescents develop depression. For one of the symptoms of depression — feelings of worthlessness and inferiority — risk reduction was as high as 28%.

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