Tips for choosing a parenting program

Cornell Cooperative Extension (CCE) parent education programs provide research and evidence-based information to parents and families across New York State with the goal of enhancing parent-child relationships, strengthening families and meeting the needs of various family types. Below are the most popular CCE parenting programs offered statewide.

Some classes are designed for specific groups or goal outcomes (such as parenting teens or divorced parents) while other programs cover general parenting topics useful for any type of parent

At The Parenting Project: Healthy Children, Families, & Communities, we support parenting programs run through Cornell Cooperative Extension (CCE) associations, which are evidence-based or research-based programs. However, not all county CCE associations offer parenting programs in their area. We recommend contacting your county's CCE office (or a nearby CCE office) to ask if they offer parenting programs in your area, here is a full list of CCE associations across New York State.

Once you have a parenting course that fits your needs be sure to check the date and times of the classes. Some courses will be just one day while others may span over many weeks

Popular parenting programs in New York State

The Magic Years curriculum is designed for families with children from birth through age four who are looking for research based information to enhance their parenting skills. The purpose of the Magic Years lessons is to provide educators with tools and resources to explain best practices in child development and parenting to caregivers. The Magic Years Class will assist participants, who are the experts on their families, in developing a deeper understanding of how their personal and parenting knowledge and behavior affects their children. The lessons are designed for parent educators/facilitators to use in conjunction with a nutrition educator. Each of the included nutrition lessons are from FNEC (Food and Nutrition Education in Communities) approved curricula. 

Curriculum contents include:

  1. Stress, goal setting, portion size;

  2. Child development, nutrition for development;

  3. Routines, family meals;

  4. Discipline, improving food attitudes;

  5. Discipline, high calcium diets;

  6. Parental Involvement/responsibility, food safety. The curriculum can be used for group classes or individual sessions. 

The Magic Years Curriculum won the New York State, Eastern Region, and National Curriculum Package Award from NEAFCS (National Extension Association of Family and Consumer Sciences).

Contact: Amanda Rae Root, CCE Jefferson County at arr27 [at] cornell.edu (arr27[at]cornell[dot]edu) for more information

The Middle Years curriculum is designed for families with children from ages five through ten who are looking for research based information to enhance their parenting skills. The purpose of the Middle Years lessons is to provide educators with tools and resources to explain best practices in child development and parenting to caregivers. The Middle Years Class will assist participants, who are the experts on their families, in developing a deeper understanding of how their personal and parenting knowledge and behavior affects their children. The lessons are designed for parent educators/facilitators to use in conjunction with a nutrition educator. Each of the included nutrition lessons are from FNEC (Food and Nutrition Education in Communities) approved curricula. 

Curriculum contents include:

  • Stress, goal setting, food safety
  • Child development, diet quality
  • Parenting Styles, feeding relationships
  • Raising Responsible Children, food attitudes
  • Communication, family meals
  • Family Relationships; children’s self image, physical activity.

The curriculum can be used for group classes or individual sessions. 

Contact: Amanda Rae Root, CCE Jefferson County at arr27 [at] cornell.edu (arr27[at]cornell[dot]edu) for more information.

Strengthening Families Program is a parent, youth and family skills-building curriculum designed to prevent teen substance abuse and other behavior problems, strengthen parenting skills, and build family strengths developed by professionals at Iowa State University Extension. The program is delivered in seven two-hour sessions where parents and youth meet separately for the first hour and then the families practice skills and have fun together during the second hour. Sessions are highly interactive and include role-playing, discussions, learning games, and family projects. Each session contains a variety of activities.

Parent sessions include viewing and discussing videotapes which portray negative and positive interactions with youth, skill-building activities and group support.

Youth sessions include game-like learning activities, discussions and skill-building activities.

Family sessions include parent-youth discussions, games, projects, skill-building practice and videotape viewing.

The Strengthening Families Program is unique in that it is a workshop in which parents and youth learn together, and the curriculum is designed and used with ethnically diverse families in rural and urban settings.

Parenting The Second Time Around (PASTA) is a parenting program designed for relative caregivers who are not the biological parents of the children in their care. PASTA provides grandparents and other kinship caregivers with information, skills, and resources designed to enhance their ability to provide effective care for the children they are parenting. PASTA consists of eight sessions that focus on topics including child development, discipline and guidance; caring for oneself as a caregiver; rebuilding a family; living with teens; legal issues; and advocacy.

Facilitator training for professionals working with grandparent/caregiver relatives and a manual for program delivery are available for educators interested in using the PASTA program. Learn more about ordering the PASTA curriculum.

This workshop is designed for professionals working with parents who may not learn well from text-based teaching approaches. The workshop manual presents basic parenting skills in a hands-on learning format suitable for any level of literacy. Originally designed for court-mandated parents, this workshop has proved successful with a broad audience. The eight-week curriculum is based on themes consistent with familiar parent education programs such as STEP (Systematic Training and Effective Parenting), and PET (Parent Effectiveness Training). Each two-hour workshop becomes a setting for participants to learn new skills in a format that emphasizes action in "real" situations. "Five Basic Parenting Skills" posters and reproducible handouts, as well as a reproducible "Certificate of Achievement" included.

Contact ams69 [at] cornell.edu (Anna Steinkraus), CCE Tompkins County at  

Email ams69 [at] cornell.edu (Anna Steinkraus) for the most up to date PS It Works Parenting Skills Workshop Series Evaluation Report 

Email jc2933 [at] cornell.edu (Julia Chapman) for the Parenting Skills Workshop Series Evaluation Tool

Discipline is Not a Dirty Word (DINADW) is a user-friendly workshop series for parents, designed to address age-appropriate discipline for children and anger management skills for parents. The curriculum is widely used throughout the Cornell Cooperative Extension (CCE) system.

Related Resources:

• DINADW Curriculum

• DINADW Facilitator's Guide