The public will have the opportunity to get some free parenting advice at RALLY for Kids, a children’s concert taking place at Park Place on Wednesday, June 1.
Nearly 50 percent of children under the age of 5 in this country experience violence and/or maltreatment in the home due to lack of good parenting skills. Barbara Unell, a journalist and parent educator, and Dr. Jerry Wyckoff, retired developmental and child psychologist, have partnered to substantially reduce this statistic.
“We don’t accept this as a given, but we accept the fact that access to proven parenting skill-building is not a right, it’s a privilege,” Unell said. “Just as individuals have access to health care, we want them to have access to parenting skills to reduce that number.”
Unell and Wyckoff have written six books together and founded a new nonprofit organization, Raised with Love and Limits. Its mission statement says it “supports every parent through positive, evidence-based, parenting skill-building that fosters children’s optimum mental and physical health and lowers the risk of adverse childhood experiences.”
Their most recent book, “Discipline with Love and Limits,” published in January, was named to a top 10 list of best parenting books by Brain, Child Magazine.
Unell and Wyckoff will be on hand at the children’s concert to autograph books and answer parenting questions. The first 100 parents will receive a free copy of their new book, plus gift bags containing special family offers from participating Park Place merchants and healthy gift items from Shawnee Mission Health (formerly Shawnee Mission Medical Center).
Shawnee Mission Health is sponsoring the event through its new LIV: Living in Vitality brand, which seeks to help Kansas City women live healthier lives physically, mentally and spiritually through an annual conference, wellness events, activities and more.
Robin Patykiewicz, program director for LIV, said the concert is a good fit for Shawnee Mission Health.
“Since we are the biggest hospital with the most babies born here, we thought it was very important for us to help all of that population,” she said. “We have a lot of moms come back that have second and third babies so we promoted this event to all of them. We thought this was a great forum for us to have a pediatrician there and (parents) can ask questions right on the spot.”
Amy Watkins, Park Place marketing manager, said she felt the children’s rally would be a good venue for Unell and Wyckoff to get their parenting message out.
She and Unell met and knew they wanted to do something together, so Watkins told her about the ongoing concert series every summer and that it “would be a fantastic tie-in to kind of launch the whole series.”
“What (Unell and Wyckoff) are bringing to the table really provides a completely new audience and brings in a lot of attention to the idea of positive discipline and positive behavior,” said Watkins.
Watkins said she hopes the RALLY for Kids concert will educate and inform parents about what Raised with Love and Limits is and what Unell and Wyckoff are trying to do, plus provide a parenting source with Shawnee Mission Health.
“Just really provide resources and information to help parents, make it a little bit easier on the hard job of being a parent,” she said.
Unell said she is grateful the Shawnee Mission Health LIV program and Park Place are teaming up to provide this experience for families, recognizing the benefits of parents and others who take care of children getting support, help and advice that’s research-based.
“They’ve been kind enough to invite us to be part of this to really shine a bright light on the importance of being caring, supportive and protective adults with kids and positive behavior problem-solving, which is what we do,” she said. “So we’re there to rally for kids and rally for parents, too.”
According to Wyckoff, their book launches a movement for prevention of child abuse and prevention of the toxic stress that a lot of children experience based on lack of good parenting skills.
“We thought if everybody was raised with love and limits, then we would have less trauma with children, which ultimately would lead to less violence and also reduce a tremendous number of physical as well as emotional problems that people experience as adults,” he explained. “Because the research is telling us that adverse childhood experiences lead to a dramatic increase in obesity, drug and alcohol abuse, heart disease, diabetes, depression, anxiety, so many things.”
The list also includes suicide, Unell added, noting these are all the things that every caring adult wants to prevent happening.
“The exciting part about Raised with Love and Limits is that research is showing that parenting is really healthcare,” she said. “The way you respond to a tantrum is as important as (the way you respond to) a temperature. How you address behaviors has more implications on health and well-being than simply stopping a child dawdling or whining or having a tantrum. And we’re excited to get that information into parents’ hands. This nonprofit will be the basis of this movement that we are engaging communities in — not only in Kansas City, but across the country.”
Wyckoff said a tremendous amount of money is being spent on treating children and young adults who have experienced adverse childhood experiences, but there is no spending on prevention. He and Unell are trying to prevent these problems from occurring in the first place.
Through Raised with Love and Limits, Unell and Wyckoff are creating pathways to getting information about parent skill-building out, not just to parents but to nurses, doctors and people in nonprofit organizations.
“Every parent is high risk and every parent is high need; no one is born knowing how to be a parent or how to raise a child,” said Unell. “So all this research going on in universities and academic institutions — even a lot of the institutions that study child development — this research needs to be translated and pushed out to the person in the Target parking lot. That’s what we’re all about — getting this information into the hands of people who can use it.”
Unell said she and Wyckoff are excited to be a part of RALLY for Kids.
“It’s building community, which is really important to us, to know our neighbors and to feel the team approach to this. We’re all in this together,” she said. “The Kansas City community is amazing in its engaging and its groundbreaking work, innovative ideas and solving problems. Cheers to this community for supporting this work and for supporting Raised with Love and Limits. We’re grateful to Kansas City and the community for wanting to improve and protect their kids.”
For more information about Raised with Love and Limits, visit the website at http://raisedwithloveandlimits.com. To find out more about Park Place and its summer concert series, go to www.parkplaceleawood.com.
RALLY for Kids
This children’s concert kicks off Park Place’s free summer concert series. It will be held from 5 to 8 p.m. Wednesday, June 1, in Barkley Square, 116th Place and Ash Street (one block east of Nall Avenue). The evening will feature performances by the popular bands Peanut Butter Hamster and The Rockin’ Rob Show. Other children’s entertainment includes balloon artists, face painters and a magic show. The summer concert series continues every Wednesday in June and July.