Family, Problems and Solutions

Parenting Skills Program

Family is the main foundation of the strength of one nation and state. Thus, knowledge of parenting and good relationship among family members, especially parents and children is not a trivial thing, moreover young people's lifestyle is more and more free. That’s why Stube-HEMAT Yogyakarta innitiatted to hold the training. Some other reasons are; first, every student had experienced their parents’ parenting style with a variety of situations and backgrounds that affected their life and soul that will also bring influences in the parenting style for the next offsprings; second, each student will face two choices of having a family or to be single with its each consequences. Each choice requires preparation and readiness.

The training was attended by thirty students who gathered at Griya Sejahtera, Ngablak, Magelang (10-12/ 05/2019). They came from various regions in Indonesia who are studying in Yogyakarta. Despite having various study backgrounds, they were enthusiastic in participating in the training. The facilitators shared their knowledge and experience according to their respective competencies. As a biblical basis, Rev. Bambang Sumbodo, reminded participants of the threat of modern lifestyles to Christian families todays by taking the story of Moses and his family. Moses, who acted as the liberator of the Israelites from slavery at that time, must be very busy. By looking at the story of Imam Jethro's visit, Jethro is Moses' father-in-law, to the family of Moses, participants learned the need of mutual support and interaction between family members. Moses' success cannot be separated from the support of his family members.

Ariani Narwastujati, Executive Director of Stube-HEMAT, through a narrative invited the participants to look back the history of Stube-HEMAT, at the introduction session. The topic of Understanding the Children’s Rights and Children’s Growth Space was facilitated by Ahmad Damar Arifin, S.Pd., a PAUD facilitator, an observer of children and a storytellers. He revealed that everyone would become a parent, but not every parent understood how to educate their children according to children's intelligence. He provided participants with children's rights in accordance with UN Convention on Children’s the Rights in 1989, covering the rights to play, to have education, to get protection, to have name or identity, national status, food, to access health, to have recreation, to be treated equally and to take a role in development.

Next, Anggraeni Upik Pratiwi, S.Psi., shared Tips to Choose the Ideal Life Spouse, based on Psychological aspects, which include, first, to recognize oneself, both strengths and weaknesses; second, to determine the criteria of the expected spouse. Upik emphasized the importance of awareness of criteria that cannot be changed, for example physical and ethnic or descent, while the nature and hobbies are changeable; and third, expanding interactions to meet many people and know them deeply.

Technological advances affect family life, both ways of communication and interaction in the family. It is like two sides of a coin, on one side, technological advances make a person able to access unlimited information, even the person tends to be individualistic, but on the other side,  it is useful, such as for marketing family business, or doing face-to-face communication even though from a distance. Those were stated by Dr. Murti Lestari, M.Sc, UKDW Business Faculty lecturer and economics practitioner.

A talkshow on Family, Problems and Solutions that presented Drs. Bambang Hediono, MBA and his wife, namely Mrs. Lucia Nucke Idayani gave opportunity to the participants to have a dialogue about what happened actually in a family, the criteria for an ideal spouse, how to approach and to care for children. Both speakers agreed that life partners must be seriously maintained despite of differences between them, both should understand the strengths and weaknesses of each, trust each other, and let children to make decision.

Case analysis session led participants to explore a particular case in family and then discuss it in groups. They connected the cases with the training material and determined some efforts of prevention, resolution and assistance.

On the last day of the training, togetherness with the GKJ Gumuk congregation became a complement to the series of activities, where participants had opportunities to offer praise in Sunday worship and donate books and props for Sunday school.

As the output of the training, the participants wrote experiences of children in their origin and the family struggles they have ever observed. Riskia Gusta Nita, a student of STAK Marturia, from Lampung revealed, "This training approached the inner side of the participants. This is good because sometimes we do not understand ourselves, then we learned how to choose a spouse and design our future. I thing it is important to share what I get and feel during the training to other friends in my environment."

Self-recognition and the understanding of parenthood are good provisions to design and to enter the future. (TRU).