Developing Independent Learners: A Guide for Parents and Teachers to the Student Empowerment Program

This book for parents is a step-by-step process in the field of positive behavioral management. It clearly and concisely explains how to develop positive parenting skills. It helps parents make positive adjustments to their behavior, as well as their child’s and helps them facilitate their child into someone who takes the onus for his or her own learning, in order to become a self dependent and a regulated person. This field guide is specifically written with the parent in mind, andwill provide strategies and techniques for setting up an atmosphere that is conducive to helping your child gain self-control, self-regulation and success in learning and life. Throughout the chapters, we reference and encourage parents to make a good home/school connection to further their child’s growth and change of behavior from negative to positive by partnering with the school teacher and staff. Our Student Empowerment Program contains the 5 R’s which are responsibility, reflection, rules, regulation and rubrics. Each of these 5 components is found in a separate chapter with details regarding how the parent will build the foundational skills needed for learning self control and self regulation, and will continue until the child is able to display the techniques and skills with little or no facilitation from the parent. The skills, techniques and activities are outlined in a process that provides the parents practice time for each of the strategies. Once the strategies are learned and are fairly successful, the parent is encouraged to move forward into learning another strategy, before finally putting all together in a culmination of what is “the new natural norm” for the household. These strategies include breathing techniques, use of positive “real” language developing through what we call sightings, the development of family rule and goal setting with clear boundaries. Behavioral consequences for rules broken are addressed in short, until the rules become true boundaries to live by, and are not broken any longer. Ultimately, the parental goal of our program is for the child and family to resort to breathing through the problem, learning self regulation and control, and choosing the right path to solving the problem without a meltdown, and in a responsible way. The book is filled with visualization techniques, surveys regarding reflection, rubrics for self assessment and suggestions to make positive changes in the atmosphere of the home when necessary. There is no additional cost, just commitment and the need to want to make the change by dedicating time and positive energy to the same.

Jane Wiatr is a retired preschool Head Start teacher from the Union Township School District Union, NJ, where she was a prekindergarten, and kindergarten teacher, Intervention and Referral Chairperson, 504 and Anti Bullying Chair for The State of New Jersey’s Anti Bullying Initiative. Her experience and expertise are regarded as a master teacher in the field of education during her 34-year teaching career. Jane began the first Alternate Route Program at Kean University for Pre-K through 3rdgrade which helped individuals begin the process of teacher certification in the State of NJ. Jane tutors children in her spare time.

Mario Barbiere has 43 years of administrative experience at all levels of education at the district level, i.e., Vice Principal, Principal, Assistant Superintendent, and Superintendent before working for the State of New Jersey turning around low performing schools or schools with an achievement gap. He has served as adjunct professor and Associate Professor at the college level and his expertise in educational neuroscience has enabled him to author five books on brain research, lesson design, instructional delivery and teacher questioning.