2/1/24

eParenting® is an innovative program initiative from UW-Madison Extension Family Living Programs. The goal of eParenting® is to empower parents in their use of digital media as a powerful and positive tool supporting their parenting role.

Columbia & Sauk County Extension Offices are offering an opportunity to take the two, 2 hour workshop series to learn more about how you can benefit from a better understanding of the role digital media can play in your children’s lives and by learning how to use new media to enhance your responsibilities as a parent.

Currently, most programs for parents about digital media focus on the potential negative effects of its use (e.g., cyber-bullying and online predators) and how parents can protect their children from such dangers. While these programs are valuable, they ignore the many positive aspects of digital media, including the ways that it can contribute to a child’s and family’s development, enhance the parent-child relationship and provide tools that can strengthen and extend child rearing skills.

Parenting…Behind the Behavior

To support your role in your child’s lives, Parenting Behind the Behavior has been designed for parents and caregivers to gather short pieces of parenting information via FaceBook. Parenting. . . Behind the Behavior (PBTB) is a weekly Facebook live series produced by a team of Division of Extension Human Development & Relationships Institute colleagues on the Digital Parenting workgroup. Every Thursday at noon a new 3-5 minute, PBTB video is released. PBTB shares short, practical, research-based tips on topics related to family engagement and child development.

“High Tech Kids”: Parents of pre-teens or teens will learn and discuss technology and it’s affect on our young people. It is during this developmental time when youth begin to test their independence, examine their values, challenge their parents, and explore their identity and sexuality. During this workshop, we will look closer at these developmental tasks and help you see why they are so important to our young people’s healthy growth. Doing so will also help us understand why digital media like social networking, texting, and gaming is so important to them and how to guide them in a positive direction.

“Co-Parenting”: Developed for divorced or separated parents of infants to teenagers. The curriculum focuses on how digital media can be used to enhance parenting skills and build a secure connection between children and all their parents and caregivers. The curriculum also helps parents understand normal child growth and development in the context of divorce and separation.