Family wellness should come first

Jeanne van der Bergh is a social worker who has been working with families in and around Midrand for years.

Van der Bergh tackles some of the challenges faced by the typical Midrand family.

“The challenges that we find is the single parent who has to work a full day and raise a child or children on their own without a good support structure. Support needs to be financially as well as emotionally as the schools are demanding and parents do not have the means or time to assist their children,” she said.

Van der Bergh added that relationships in a single parent environment also brought a lot of challenges. Many parents did not have good role models and did not know what was expected of them within the family environment. “Being a father is not about providing money only, but there needs to be emotional understanding and support as well. This brings a lot of conflict in a family when the father expects the mother to fulfil all the needs and support,” she said.

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She said it was important for parents to understand challenges faced by children within schools. “Bullying needs to be addressed by communication with parents as well as teachers to understand the implications and the emotional trauma that it brings to the victims.”

She said all was not lost though for families. “Parents are taught how to do their jobs and are studying to be the best in their careers but parents never receive training on how to be a parent. They rely on the schools to educate their children but the communication between the parents and children are not always clear.” She said parents needed to be educated in the challenges of being a parent and there were changes throughout the age groups of children, from babies to toddlers, to tweens and teens.

Through her Guidance to Grow workshops, Van der Bergh said she gave parents guidance such as a recent case when a father called her wondering how to discipline his teenage son. “Turns out, the father had no father in his life and therefore had no role model on what a father needs to do. His relationship with his son was non-existent and they were always in conflict.

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“The workshops that are presented by Dr Hedwig van der Westhuizen is meant to be a support and learning aid for the parents to understand certain aspects better. The workshops are also followed up by group sessions for the parents whereby they can discuss their individual challenges and needs in parenting and to learn from each other.”

She said there was a happy ending for this family in question. “Through individual counselling as well as family counselling, they learned about each others’ needs and expectations and how to communicate and the family relationship was restored.”

Van der Bergh invited all parents to a parenting workshop that her organisation will be hosting on 23 July in Glen Austin.

Details: info@guidancetogrow.co.za

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