Parenting Program Focuses on Premise That Stopping Gangs Begins in the Home

Sylvia Rodriguez’s 14-year-old son barely survived his first year with a gang, during which he was arrested on suspicion of armed robbery, suffered a bullet wound and overdosed on drugs.

Now Rodriguez, 42, is raising a grandchild and wants to avoid the same history. So this mother of five has joined a parenting class.

Like the other 13 women and five men in her 10-week class, she seeks a sound relationship with the child she is rearing.

The Pico Rivera class, in Smith Park’s auditorium, is a prototype for a project that could become regionwide, a program with the premise that gang prevention begins at home.

Gang identification often begins when a child emerges from his home without self-esteem or adequate support, said Andy Anderson, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department sergeant who organized the class.

Anderson directs the Paramount-based Consolidated Youth Services Network, which provides free counseling for juveniles. Fourteen cities, including Cerritos, Downey, Norwalk and Whittier, take part in network programs.

Anderson started the parenting class with about $3,000 in anti-gang money left over from state and federal grants.

“Prevention is the best means to attack the problem,” said Anderson, a 31-year veteran of law enforcement.

Gloria Garcia is one parent who hopes to forestall problems. Three of Garcia’s younger brothers became gang members.

“I tell my children these are your uncles, and you need to respect them, but I don’t want you to be like them,” she said.

Another brother resisted gang membership, and gang members beat him.

The oldest of her three children is 13. They “are still at an age where I can control them,” the 32-year-old dental assistant said. “When they are 17 . . . “ She paused.

“I really don’t know if those parents who have children already involved in gangs, if they will benefit very much.”

Judy Torres worries that the class may be too little, too late. Torres, a 36-year-old single parent, said her 16-year-old daughter will not abide by a 1 a.m. curfew, nor will she go to counseling.

As for the parenting class, “she just said it was a joke that I should be taking this extra step to understand her.

“My worst fear is that she’d get hooked on drugs, meet up with the wrong person one day. You never know what’s out there on the street. It scares me.

“She went to the same high school I did, and it’s not the same,” Torres said, because of the increase in drug and gang activity.

The playing field has changed for the parenting game, psychologist Karen Laski said to her class of parents. “We tell them to do something and they don’t. And we don’t know why because (we say,) ‘That worked when I was a kid.’ ”

Rhonda Avalos said her son justifies his defiance of authority with, “I didn’t get arrested. I’m not drinking. I’m not doing drugs. I’m doing well in school.”

Actually, Avalos said, “he’s making Ds, and because he’s not failing, he says he’s doing well. It’s like if I punish him, he’s going to get back at me by failing.”

“Misbehavior stems from not belonging, not feeling a part of the family,” Laski says. “It’s a way of compensation, communication. Look at it as a form of communication. It’s important that you identify the goal of the misbehavior.”

She talks about focusing on encouragement and bending on unimportant issues to emphasize more important values. She believes that children learn responsibility when they must face the consequences of their actions.

These consequences, however, should not be expressed as punishment, which seems arbitrary to children or a put-down.

She uses “The Parent’s Handbook” as a text. It’s part of a program called Systematic Training for Effective Parenting. The course is free.

Anderson hopes to enlarge enrollment so parent groups can be segregated by the ages of the children. He intends to start classes in other places and to offer the course in Spanish.

The sooner the better, said Garcia, who became a parent at age 19. “Doctors and psychologists go to classes to learn about childhood development,” she said. “And we go by trial and error, and now we want help.”

Rodriguez considers herself fortunate that her son survived gang membership--so far--and that he now wants out.

Still, she sees the boys congregate at an apartment building two blocks from her door and in the riverbed nearby. She thinks about the parents of those many youngsters and marvels at the size of her parenting class.

“I’m surprised it had such a small turnout,” she said.