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Frequently Asked Questions
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What is the Parenting With Dignity® program? Our program is presented as a 9 hour parenting course offered on DVD or VHS video with a FREE accompanying parent's workbook. The premise of our program is based upon one central idea: "WHETHER YOU APPROVE OR NOT, YOUR CHILDREN WILL MAKE The course is intended to be viewed by parents over a nine week period of time (to see the individual lessons, click here). It consists of approximately nine hours of taped classes, and we feel strongly that they produce the best results when viewed in small groups. Each tape is designed to be viewed in sequence, although if viewed alone, every lesson will teach the viewer new skills which can be used immediately in dealing with children. Also, included in the package is a Facilitator's tape which contains many suggestions for attracting class members, and setting up and conducting classes! To order the videos, click here.
Where does the phrase "Parenting With Dignity" come from? When I (Mac Bledsoe) was in the Army there was an amazing lady who worked for me in the
office that I was assigned to manage. I'll call her Patricia to keep her identity
private, but Patricia kept me sane while I was in the insanity of the Army and
the Viet Nam war. She also taught me a ton while I was there. (She remains a
friend today and she is still teaching me.) One day she was out in the reception
center greeting soldiers with her usual cheerful attitude and she was treating
everyone with the same respect and dignity... rank, age, color or position never
made any difference to Patricia . She treated everyone with dignity and
integrity. I could see her through the window in my office. She had arrived at
her usual time, ten minutes early. After about an hour on the job one of the
Privates who worked with her came in and said, "Lt. Bledsoe, did you see what
happened to Patricia last night?"
The answer to that is simple, it does not! Just because Drew is a good football player does in no way qualify us to speak authoritatively about parenting skills. Shoot, we made most of the mistakes we learned from with Drew! Our kids were easy children to raise but in the process of raising Drew and Adam we did a ton of reading and paying attention. We were fortunate to both be schoolteachers and we paid attention to what the kids in our classes taught us. The resources we used in the creation of our curriculum were the children in our classes. We worked hard to use tactics that worked and we paid attention to the results. Certainly we have read extensively and have attended countless workshops, and conferences but our chief source of information came from our work in the real world with real kids, real parents, and real problems. Believe me, I am as aware as anyone that in some circles some people discount any conclusion about human interaction that is not backed up by extensive clinical and laboratory research. However, we tend to put much more stock in the practical and time-tested skills that we have actually used in real life situations. We have studied the tactics of effective work with kids for longer that most researchers at colleges, universities, and research institutes. We have worked with literally thousands of subjects over a combined 46 years of teaching. Our observations do count for something. Forgive me for this but I really do not much care what the world of academia thinks of what we teach in our Parenting with Dignity Program. I am only concerned about what the people we are attempting to help can understand and use. Unfortunately, much of the information which is "supported by solid empirical findings showing their effectiveness" are locked away, in educational, psychological, and medical journals rather than in the homes of the people who need them. I have 29 years of experience in the public school classrooms. My wife, Barbara, has 17 years of experience. What we have designed for parents is a set of skills that we found to work with kids. We make no pretence that what we know about what works was gained through "empirical research." It does not have to come from a lab or clinical research to work for us or to work for parents. This program does not pretend to be "rocket science or brain surgery!" The name for our program is a case in point. We call it Parenting with Dignity because we learned a very simple principle from an amazing lady in Virginia. She was the victim of hatred and terror perpetrated by the Ku Klux Klan when they burned a cross in her front yard but she still showed up for work on time and still treated everyone with kindness, respect, and dignity. When I asked her to explain how she could be so constant in her calm care for others even in light of the nastiness and racial prejudice she experienced on the previous evening. She responded very simply, and cheerfully, "Oh, that's simple, Mac. In our family we treat people with respect, kindness, and dignity, not because others happen to treat us with respect, kindness, and dignity. We treat them that way because WE are respectful, kind, and dignified!" Her simple statement of an obvious truth about human interaction seemed to stand on its own simple validity. We did not feel that it required empirical research to be used by us and other parents in dealing with our kids. We used her simply stated truth to say to ourselves, "We will treat children with respect, kindness, and dignity, and we will do it not necessarily because they are acting that way but rather because we are." This concept has served countless thousands of parents we have worked with to control their anger or frustration with their children and be the adult in the situation and continue to treat their children with dignity. Simple but true! We also found out by personal experience that we could drastically increase the chances of getting a child or room full of children to do what we were trying to get them to do if we could actually tell them what it was! We found out that the chances of getting the children to what we were instructing them to do were significantly increased if we could explain the desired action in behavioral terms that they could understand. We had found that in working with students it was a constant temptation to tell kids to stop doing what they were doing without telling them what to do in place of their inappropriate behavior. Again, this fundamental fact did not seem to be in need of some researcher to verify it with empirical findings. Explaining the desired action precisely increases the likelihood of compliance. Simple, yes. Also, very useful advice. So many people experience failure as parents simply because they failed to explain their desired behavior effectively to their children. Teaching those parents how to explain desired actions to their children brings changes in behavior. I'm certain that my brief explanation will most likely not change many minds and it is not my intention to do so. I do, however, hope that my explanation will help you to at least understand our point of view. In the formation of our curriculum and our foundation we simply made the decision that it would take more time and definitely more money to do the research than it would take to do the work. We are very confident that we have created a set of tools that sincerely do provide help to parents in a way that empirical research has failed to provide help. We, like many others, have seen many techniques used in child welfare programs, parent-training programs, and in schools that were not very functional. However, a bigger problem that we encountered with much more frequency than the use of ineffective techniques was the failure to use any techniques. The biggest failure of people to parent their children effectively was the lack of any conscious plan. We have tried to provide an effective plan based upon solid logic and tried and true principles. We did not accept anything simply because it had been used before. We have challenged many traditional parenting techniques (see our entire Tape 9 The Reasons That Punishment Doesn't Work) but we have simply attempted to evaluate all techniques for the degree to which we were able to use the techniques in real situations to effect change of a positive nature. It is possible to learn a great deal by observing simple learning situations and drawing some conclusions about how learning takes place. Take learning to ride a bicycle for example: we can learn a great deal from that learning process if we pay some attention.
Now, how many people learned how to ride a bike when someone actually put them on a seat, put the handlebars in their hands, and gave them a shove. Everyone! Some were provided training wheels, some were not but all learned when they got to ride. No empirical research was needed for us here. Simply put, we learned that, in teaching something to a child, the results had almost nothing to do with what we did and had everything to do with what the child did. That has proven to be a very, very helpful concept for many parents to understand. It changes the thinking of parents who try to tell themselves that they have tried everything. Now they know that they have just tried some things that didn't work with their kids in the situation they were in. They must "get the kid back on the seat and get the handlebars back in the child's hands." The parents must keep trying to find other techniques that will work. This again is a very valuable idea or technique for parents to have in their repertoire of skills. Again, little research necessary. Finally, I will say our experience through 23 years of speaking to people about the topic of effective parenting has taught us that talking about research and the results of research is not very communicative. Few people want to hear about statistics and research studies. People want to know about the things that we have actually tried in real situations with real children. We have learned to communicate with parents in the same way that we learned to teach kids. We have paid attention to what works and what they tell us. It is for that reason that we use mostly anecdotal support rather than citing the results of research and statistics.
Have you written any books on parenting? Yes, two books are now available. Mac's first book, "Parenting With Dignity", is a sincere and
compelling approach to teaching parents how to instill a sense of responsible
decision making in their kids.
In this book, you will discover a simple premise of the Parenting
with Dignity philosophy, and...
See why John Stossel of ABC's 20/20 says this is a must read.
"The Early Years"Mac Bledsoe's newest parenting book...available in soft cover. Learn the five rules for resolving the most common challenges with children two to six. The perfect companion to Mac's other book and videos below. Order your copies here and Mac Bledsoe will personally sign them FREE - (makes a great gift for every parent). Shop ahead for upcoming births, birthdays, and the holidays.
That is a very good question and one that we hear often. Drew and his wife Maura, committed to this cause five years ago with a donation of $1,000,000.00, intended to last six years. Now in our fifth year, they have given this foundation almost twice that that amount. Although they are as committed as ever to this cause, we have grown beyond their solitary means of supporting this program. Please help us to prove that Americans will support a cause like this. The long-term success of this program is based on grass roots efforts from people like you. We believe that is the best way for us to build a solid financial base. We need your help. Please donate a few dollars to our foundation's efforts. Help us help America's Kids. Won't you please donate a few dollars today? Click here!
Do you make money from the sale of your videos? The money we charge for our set of ten videos and the workbook, barely covers the cost of production. When you add processing, storage, and other internal costs, we actually lose money on every sale. We want to keep the price of our videos accessible to as many people as possible, so we do not look at this as a profit center.
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Who are the experts that you have drawn inspiration and advice from over the years? Now, for a list of "Experts" I will provide you with some key sources of information. I must first repeat that the number one source of information that we have used has been the kids we have worked with. Any time that we found something that sounded like a reasonable technique or principle as we consulted an authority or expert, we would not put it into use until we had actually tried it out in a real situation. If it worked for us, then we put it into our repertoire. Here are some of our key sources: Alden Esping
- He was the YMCA youth group leader in our hometown of Ellensburg Washington
while I was growing up. He went on to teach in Anaheim California where he was
selected High School Activities Director of the year in 1996. He was the first
person to expose me to the fact that I could challenge myself to higher
performance via goals and personal challenges. He has remained an advisor ever
since sixth grade. I put so much faith in Alden because he was using his skills
daily to improve life for kids in his school.
What can people expect from a Parenting with Dignity session? Quite simply, what I hope that people will get out of the visit with our Parenting with Dignity curriculum is that, whether or not they want to admit it or not, their children will make all of the big decisions in their lives. I want people to understand that this is an inescapable fact of life because when their kids make almost all of those big decisions the parents will not be physically present to make them for their kids. The question of using drugs (and contrary to what some have fooled themselves into believing, alcohol is the most dangerous drug used by teens in America) will be made by the kids because when the drug is offered the parents will not be present! Kids will also make the decision about sex. Parents could preprogram their cell phone to dial home on speed-dial and at the moment of decision they will not get a call from their children asking for advice! We want parents to understand that at the moment of making decisions what the kids will use are the ideas in their heads. We want parents to understand that if they have taught their kids some good ideas to use in making those decisions the kids will most likely make good decisions but if they have not taught them the ideas for making good decisions that the kids will use whatever ideas they happen to have in their head at the time, and it will probably be the idea presented by the person attempting to entice them into the action. We want people to understand that it is much easier to insure that their kids make good decisions if the whole community is involved in teaching some common ideas and that this is very possible if they meet to discuss what is going to be taught. Almost all parents want kids to be honest, drug free, and have a sense of their own spirituality. Most parents want their kids to be compassionate and to exhibit appropriate behavior in a public place. The list is easy to put together but parents must meet to agree on some of these critical issues.
Where is God in your Parenting with Dignity program? Our program is not about WHAT to teach, it is about HOW to teach effectively - how to teach your values to your children. God is for YOU to put in the program! Our course teaches techniques for YOU to use in teaching what YOU believe to YOUR children.
How can I get Mac and Barbara to speak at my function? Mac and Barbara Bledsoe speak at functions all over the United States. To see where they are scheduled to speak in the future, view Mac's engagement calendar. To inquire about having them speak at your next function, request a date.
Where can I order the video program? There are three convenient ways to order a set of videos for your personal use.
How can I help this worthy cause?
Where can I find information, or an e-mail address for Drew Bledsoe? As you might expect, Drew receives quite a lot of "fan mail" sent through our Webmaster or other email links. Due to the overwhelming interest in his career, we will be launching a Drew Bledsoe site in the very near future. We will announce the opening of this site in our newsletter, so if you haven't already, now would be a great time to subscribe.
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