Parents are expected to be active participants in their child’s program. They are taught the basic principles and skills necessary to meet their child’s developmental needs. Parents are coached in understanding their child’s core areas of difficulty. They are introduced to the use of intervention strategies to promote their child’s cooperation and regulation so that they can learn the skills necessary to promote their development.
Parents are also provided direct, didactic teaching and experiential training with support via supervision to address their parenting skills and needs. With an understanding of their child’s developmental needs, they can become competent at supporting, enjoying and challenging their child. A Parent Skills Inventory has been developed to ensure they are able to meet the parenting objectives in order to further their child’s developmental needs.
As parents have a better understanding of their child’s developmental needs, they become more competent in making a difference by setting up experiences that help to remediate their child’s deficits. With support and guidance, parents develop greater competence in effectively addressing their child’s obstacles.
VHAP staff collaborate with parents to build upon their existing knowledge and learn an expanding repertoire of appropriate interventions to: promote their child’s relationships with others; socially communicate their intentions; and understand and effectively manage their difficult behaviors and regulate their emotions. Parents also learn the sequential developmental stages to build the foundation that remediate the core deficits and optimizes their child’s progression towards emotional thinking and dynamic intelligence.
Parents are guided to provide increased opportunities to engage with their child in meaningful play experiences and maximize every day routine activities to connect and relate to their child. As well as promoting relational skills, they further learn how to guide their child in developing the functional daily living skills to promote increased independence.Parents can come to feel more empowered as they guide and foster their child’s competence. The process in becoming more integrated in developing a sense of self, problem-solving everyday issues, managing significant relationships with their family and friends and become a part within their community is the essence of remediation.