Parenting Support Groups
Our parenting support group program runs in living rooms, schools, churches and synagogues and guides parents of teenagers to:
- Improve their relationship with their teenagers,
- Enhance communication and understanding with their teens,
- Become proactive in keeping kids from engaging in risky behaviors,
- Develop a support network of peers,
- Connect with parents in their community as they build a support network.
This program is easy to run, flexible, inexpensive to administer, and it benefits parents, teenagers and communities.
Please Stop the Rollercoaster! How Parents of Teenagers Can Smooth Out the Ride provides the curriculum for this parenting support group program.
Here’s how the program works:
The reading material and discussion questions for the program are contained in the 280 page book.
Parents meet for 8 sessions, each lasting about 2 hours in length. In preparation for each meeting, the parents read one chapter in Please Stop the Rollercoaster! where each chapter is devoted to one major topic area. Over the course of the program parents learn about and discuss the range of issues faced by typical teens in grades 6 – 11. Each topic is grounded in research and provides insight directly from many experts.
The discussions can be self-directed like a book group, or led by a discussion leader using our secular, Christian or Jewish Leader’s Guides.
Our short informational video (in right hand column) will explain the program more fully. Don’t miss it!
We even help you promote and run your group program. We offer promotional items such as a newsletter article, press release, jpg images and more. And to help you run your group you can download a confidentiality agreement, information on how to maintain smooth group dynamics and more. Click the bar to the right “Tools to Promote and Run Rollercoaster Groups.”
Learn more about:
- The guide Please Stop the Rollercoaster! How Parents of Teenagers Can Smooth Out the Ride
- The secular, Jewish and Christian leader’s guides
What people are saying:
“Rollercoaster is just what our community was looking for. It provides the framework for parents to create a community that will support them throughout the teen years.
Paula Nelson, Parent Engagement Network, Boulder CO
“Please Stop the Rollercoaster!…was invaluable in providing content and structure to our parenting discussion groups. Each meeting had preparation and discussion guidelines from the book’s chapters…We learned so much from each other and came away from each meeting with different ways to think about situations and manage them.”
Sally Lewis, Former Director, Community Action for Youth, Acton MA
“Sensible, straight forward and fastidiously researched – everything one needs to know to parents teens more effectively.”
Kate Frank, Albuquerque, NM
“I walk away each time my group meets with ideas of how to do things differently. This is a springboard for great ideas!”
Nancy Gardiner, Trumbull, CT
