Parenting

The first few years of a child's life are the most important for healthy growth and development. Young children need safety, security and lots of love to feel good about themselves and to care about others. Parents often feel unsure about how to handle various aspects of their child's behaviour or development. Parents who engage in positive, consistent parenting at an early age face fewer problems with adolescent mental health, learning outcomes, social skills and risk-taking behaviour.

Health Canada's programs focus on the early years. There are also resources available for parents of older children, and adolescents.

On this page:

• For A Good Start
• Common Issues
• Work-Life Balance and Time Use
• Safe and Supportive Environments
• Family-Community Supports

For A Good Start

The following resources are offered by the Public Health Agency of Canada.

• It's Time to Immunize: A web site and guide offering immunization information specifically for parents.
• Welcome to parenting: The first six years is packed with key information and helpful tips for parents
• What's Wrong with Spanking (PDF version) offers useful tips on effective forms of non-physical discipline of children. It contains information on behavioural issues in early child development and outlines general parenting principles. The content reflects Canada's diversity, cultural practices and values, and it provides information on available resources.
• Nobody's Perfect is a parent support and education program for parents of children from birth to age five.
• Parenting Today's Teens will help professionals who work with parents of teens to identify and locate resources specifically designed to help families at this stage of their parenting. It will also assist parents themselves when they look for an appropriate parenting course or if they wish to organize one in their community.
• Attachment to Parents and Adjustment in Adolescence

Common Issues

• Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD)
• Child Abuse
• Disease & Conditions
• Nutrition
• Teen Pregnancy
• Youth and Substance Use

Work-Life Balance and Time Use

• An Examination of the Implications and Costs of Work-Life Conflict in Canada
  This report uses survey data collected by Duxbury and Higgins between 1991 and 1998 to examine work life conflict within Canada and the costs of this conflict to employees, to their employers and to the health care system.
• Reducing Work-Life Conflict: What Works? What Doesn't?
• The Effects of Time Use and Time Pressure on Child-Parent Relationships: Research Report

Safe and Supportive Environments

• All Together Now - How families are affected by Depression and Manic Depression We know a lot more about depression and manic depression than we did only a few years ago. And we've learned how deeply these disorders affect the whole family. That's why this booklet was written: to help families live with affective disorders.
• Safe Environments The health and well-being of children and adolescents depends on the safety and quality of their physical and social environments.

Family-Community Supports:

• Aboriginal Head Start (AHS) is a Health Canada-funded early intervention program for First Nations, Inuit and Métis children and their families living in urban and Northern communities. The principal goal of AHS is to demonstrate that locally controlled and designed intervention strategies can provide Aboriginal children with a positive sense of themselves, a desire for learning and opportunities to develop fully as successful young people.
• Community Action Program for Children (CAPC) provides long term funding to community coalitions to deliver programs that address the health and development of children (0-6 years) and their families who are living in conditions of risk. Projects are delivered at the community level, providing parents with the support and information they need to raise their children.
• Canada Prenatal Nutrition Program funds community groups to support pregnant women facing circumstances that threaten their health and the development of their babies (poverty, teen pregnancy, isolation, etc.) Services provided include food supplements, nutrition counseling, social support, and education and referral on health and social issues.