Parenting during the pandemic: Expert answers questions on raising children while stuck at home
A child development expert discusses challenges parents face while home with their kids during the COVID-19 pandemic, and free guidebooks his nonprofit is making available.
LOS ANGELES (KABC) -- For parents, the coronavirus pandemic has brought on unprecedented challenges - like home schooling and around-the-clock child care.
But there is help for parents who may be struggling with this new reality.
Dr. Kerby Alvy, parenting expert and founder of the nonprofit Center for the Improvement of Child Caring, spoke to ABC7 to offer guidance for parents.
Q: Why do parents need extra help and advice on raising children during the pandemic?
Being a parent can be one of the greatest experiences of one's life. But it's a demanding job to begin with. During the pandemic it's even more stressful, because of the 24 hours you're with the kids all the time. So now is an even more important time for parents to get their guidance.
Q: Tell us about your guidebooks and how they can help parents communicate more effectively with their children. What are the do's and don'ts?
I'm head of a 46-year-old nonprofit organization. I've written several books for parents. "The New Power of Positive Parenting," which focuses on what you can say that's really important to your kids and how to say so that they're going to continue to behave well. "The Soulful Parent" is a book that is written specifically for African American parents because this pandemic has disproportionately made African Americans more vulnerable. So we created this book as well as a parenting program called "Effective Black Parenting." And now we're making them all available for free because of the pandemic and the need parents have to get good guidance.
Q: How can people get their own free copy of your guidebooks?
You can just go to the CICC website. On the website you can find different guidebooks that you can download yourself. We want to make these guidebooks available as widely as possible because parents could stand a little help now in raising these wonderful children that they're with 24 hours, seven days a week.
