Collaborative learning in group parent education

In the past, parent education is embedded within the nurture assumption which maintains that parenting is not a self-sufficient and self-sustaining act but is inherently directed towards the well-being and functional behavioral development of a child. Historically, parent education has been influenced by the education model that emphasizes the process of training and developing knowledge, skills, mind and character. By recognized personal parenting knowledge as what parents know and upon which they think and act in parenting, parent educators necessarily need to expand the locus of parent education to include learner's personal parenting knowledge. The research set up a group parent education program, named 'Self-learning in Parenthood' enabled participants to collaboratively examine and reflect on their parenting experience within a group-based conversation. The program lasted four sessions covering the following themes: (a) exploring the "family-of-origin" influence on a person's parenting beliefs and practice; (b) situating difficulties that the present generation of parents face in the context of sociocultural changes and the social construction of childhood; (c) how parents learn to become better problem-solvers from their parenting experience; and (d) how parents can learn from their children's parenting experience to become better problem-solvers. This paper studies the experiences and learning of the participants.