Parents Told: Teach Your Children Well

Spending her Saturday in a classroom didn’t sound like much fun to Jacqueline Thomas-Nelson of Lawndale. But the mother of four changed her mind when she heard it might make her a better parent.

Thomas-Nelson and about 50 others attended a day of free food, entertainment and parenting workshops at Leuzinger High School in Hawthorne. The discussions covered topics including prevention of teen-age pregnancy and resolution of family conflicts.

Speakers presented information in English, Spanish and Vietnamese but said the message of the seven-hour event was universal.

“Parents need to practice what they preach to their children,” said Jackie LaBouff, a school psychologist who organized the Together We Can Family Celebration Fair.

“I wasn’t going to come today, but then I thought about what that says to my kids,” said Thomas-Nelson, 31, who has four sons ages 3 to 8.

But luring a large number of parents to the fair proved difficult. Organizers said they distributed thousands of flyers advertising Saturday’s fair and ran a promotional video on local cable television. But just four dozen people attended. Last year, nearly 150 came.

LaBouff said some parents might not have received the flyers because they were given to students to take home. But she said apathy and denial also contributed to the low turnout.

The main thrust of the workshops was that parental behavior is the greatest influence on children’s education.

“For example, we can’t get youth to say no to drugs when the parents are saying yes,” LaBouff said.

In 1992, LaBouff won a $550,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Education to spread that message in Hawthorne, Lawndale and Lennox. The three-year grant provides money for educational programs and helped stage last year’s conference as well. The money also pays for a series of two-hour workshops at 6:30 p.m. on Thursdays. The meetings resume May 5 at Roosevelt Elementary School in Lawndale.