Parenting skills - the importance of training and validation

EPA was invited to take part at the Policy Debate on Intergenerational Learning on 30 March in Brussels. There, as usual, we emphasised the important role parents and grandparents play in the education of children and also the vast amount of learning they do while parenting. Andrew McCoshan from the ePlatform for Adult Learning in Europe became interested in the topic and as a result he published an article about EPA on this website of the European Commission: Why we need more quality learning opportunities for parents
"Outside the workplace, being a parent can be one of the most intense periods when adults acquire skills. Yet compared to other areas of activity its role – and also its potential – is not widely acknowledged. Andrew McCoshan looked into the work of the European Parents' Association to find out more.

Parenting equips adults with a wide range of transversal skills that are useful both in life in general and also in employment. Parents have to manage household finances, deal with health issues and organise complex family schedules, to mention just a few areas.

Yet the opportunity for parents to learn such skills is undergoing important changes linked to long-term shifts in the nature of the “family circle". In the 19th century parents could learn from the experience of an extended and diverse family network. But since the rise of the nuclear family, such opportunities have shrunk. While the role of the family differs enormously across Europe, opportunities to learn the broad skills that parents require need to be developed."
Read on here
Source: http://ec.europa.eu/epale