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New Perspectives - Jun,
1995 Issue #34
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PARENTS, THE FORGOTTEN STUDENTS
by: Saul Rudman, Co-Director - Consultant Relations
CEDU Education
Monterey, California
800-444-2338
As emotional growth programs continue to strive to address the special needs of already
special students, one particular group is almost certainly getting lost under layers of programmatic sophistication.
Integral to the success and well-being of a child in any program are the parents. And while
it's of paramount importance for counselors to address the virtues of one benefit or another when discussing the needs of a prospective
student, it's usually quite another when it comes to the current and on-going needs of parents.
CEDU Education has taken a significant step in addressing the apparent disparity between
child and parent education in its effort to reunite families through its comprehensive spectrum of therapeutic schools and programs.
CEDU Founder Mel Wasserman has gone so far as to declare the Parent Education Program CEDU
Education's eight school, standing alongside the others, and more importantly, touching them all with a message of reassurance, self-improvement
and skill-building that will serve parents for life.
Though the roots of a young person's problems at home, school and among peers prior to enrollment
may sometimes seem obscure, their roots are invariable entwined with parents. And so, just as certainly, will their solutions.
A pioneer in the field of emotional growth education, the CEDU Family of Services has helped
make thousands of "families" Families again. Much of its success through the past three decades is attributable to Mel's
work with parents in workshops, seminars and one-to-one. It's been demonstrated time and again that addressing the needs of a child
outside a familial context - even while in-program - can provide only a partial solution to a complex problem.
One of the cornerstones of a CEDU Education is the staff member as role model. It's also
true of parents. Parents who are centered, self-aware, whole and healthy send a statement to their children that is irrefutable and
all-important - they bring value to their children.
There are, of course, those parents who have done the right things, and whose children still
end up needing the impactful experience of an emotional-growth school. But for most parents, it's a matter of learning to discover,
appreciate and appropriately apply the person within a manner that parallels the growth and maturity of their children-seeing themselves
for who they are, and doing something good with that.
So profound is this CEDU commitment to the role of parents in their children's education
that participation is not an option. If CEDU students are going to make significant strides toward the fulfillment of their promise,
it will be with the full, active, and positive participation of parents.
Copyright © 1995, Woodbury Reports, Inc. (This article may be reproduced
without prior approval if the copyright notice and proper publication and author attribution accompanies the copy.)
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