RE: School Readiness -- A Critical Foundation

Ms Heflin,
As a former Head Start Director I has your exact same experience with regard to parent attendance at Parenting Workshops.  In two years, out of 96 fathers, I only actually met 3 of them.  To be fair, I currently work with clients that enjoy a median income of $110,000.00 and they don't show up at parenting workshops, either.  However, their money insulates them (and their children) from a lot of the obvious ills that permeate our family structure (i.e. they can hire people to care for their children while poorer children have to fend for themselves = it's neglect either way).

I want to comment that this is a concern and bears cost analysis, does the State of California really want to invest $$$ into additional Parent Education when already funded programs aren't being used? I absolutely want parents to receive the information they need, but I'm not pretending that every parent or even most are willing to avail themselves of readily obtained, free information.  This isn't a complete disrespect of parents (I am a parent),in our defense: we are busy, we work,we are exhausted, and we often would choose to spend time at home with our children then cut into family time by attending a workshop.

A little step in the right direction would be to get the soap operas off the TV monitors in the DMV, welfare and unemployment lines and replace it with 0-3 Parenting videos (Dr. Perry and Dr. Brazleton).  It's a completely practical fantasy.