Countywide : ‘College’ Is for Toddlers and Parents

It’s a place where parents and their children go to college together.

At Coastline Community College’s Newport Beach Center, instructor Marion Walters sings songs, tells stories and offers art activities to toddlers in her class.

But Walters also teaches their parents skills and techniques to become better parents.

“It’s a great place for the kids to have the freedom to play and to learn, but the most special thing is Mom is here too,” said Lynn Greeley of Newport Beach, who takes the parenting class with her triplet sons.

Coastline Community College offers a variety of parent education programs at three of its community locations: Newport Beach Center, Huntington Beach Center and Huntington Westminster Center.

The courses are offered for infants, toddlers and preschoolers and their parents. Classes are held mornings, Monday through Friday, and on Wednesday night for working parents.

In the program, parents are the students, and their children are the laboratory, said Dottie Apel, an instructor and head of the college’s parent education program.

“Parents get an hour of lecture and discussion on child development theories and philosophies and children are involved in activities. It’s a perfect lab for theories to be tested and checked out,” Apel said.

About 200 parents are enrolled in the fall semester, she said.

Classes focus on such areas as effective ways of disciplining, behavior for different ages, handling parental guilt and other helpful hints on coping with stress, Apel said.

“With the change in structure of the family with working parents and society the way it is today, there’s a greater need for parent education,” she said.

Parents agreed.

Diane Hihara of Huntington Beach, mother of a 3 1/2-year-old boy, enrolled in the class to learn more about being a parent.

“There’s nothing to teach you how to be a parent except for the way you were raised,” Hihara said.

Dave Puig of Anaheim, a single father, said he took the night class with his two daughters last year, which resulted in spending quality time with them.

“I learned a wealth of knowledge and (developed) a better relationship with my children. Before taking the class, I realized, I had no parenting skills,” he said.

Kathy Douglas, a single parent with triplets, recently enrolled in a daytime class and figured it would be a way to better understand her 2 1/2-year-old children.

“I thought it’d be a good place to learn more about child development, and for them to interact with other kids,” said Douglas, who lives in North Tustin.

She also said that with three toddlers, two boys and a girl, it’s a “cheap way of giving them preschool experience.”

Parents said that going to class with their children has resulted in positive experiences.

Adriana Cabeza, a mother of four, first took the class with her two older children. Because it helped her to handle behavior and problem situations, she now attends with her two younger children, ages 2 1/2 and 4.

“It enhances their education. You learn to mix knowledge and love together,” said Cabeza, of Huntington Beach. “We get the support and the tools to help them grow.”