Parenting Groups

A child’s development and overall success can be attributed to a number of factors, such as the parenting the child receives and the quality of the attachment relationship. At Merrymount, parenting matters!

Our holistic education and relationship focused programs, address the needs of parents to increase parenting capacity and promote positive developmental and mental health outcomes for their child.

Parents are eligible to attend our parenting programs if they have full or part time custody, or substantial access to their child. Parents must register themselves for a group; we do not accept third party referrals. These programs are offered virtually.

For information or to register for any of these programs, please contact (519) 434-6848 ext. 253 or email sheslop@merrymount.on.ca

Parenting in the Early Years (ages 1 - 5)

Circle of Security Parenting

The 8 session (16 hours) Circle of Security Parenting program will explore your relationship with your child and help you find ways to ensure your child has a secure attachment to you. The aim is to help parents understand challenging behaviour by responding to the child’s underlying need. In this video-based parent reflection program, parents will learn to support their child’s “going out” to explore their world with confidence and “coming in” when they are overwhelmed or emotionally distressed.

Parenting in the School Aged Years (ages 6 - 12)

Compassion Focused Parenting

This 6 session (12 hours) program helps parents learn skills to build a new framework to understand themselves and their child. Parents learn skills to work through parental self-criticism by increasing self-compassion. Parents also learn skills to promote resiliency for their child through emotion coaching, encouraging positive behaviour changes, and the provision of compassionate support to strengthen the parent-child relationship.

This program was developed by Dr. Eli Cwinn and Katarina Guillen. Read more.

Parent and Child Concurrent Programs

Some of our programs require parents and children both to attend separate groups. Parents attend one group to learn the necessary skills to guide and support their child as they work through the program. The child should be available to attend the children’s program while in the care of the parent attending the parenting portion.

Anxiety to Resilience (ages 9- 12)

Anxiety is one of the leading mental health issues for children today. In this concurrent program, the parent and child are supported in separate programs. In an art and play based program, children spend 8 sessions (8 hours) addressing their self-confidence, resistance to new situations, struggles with flexible thinking, and their personal experiences with anxiety. Parents are provided a 4 session (6 hours) program to understand anxiety, discuss strategies and resources to support their child, reduce parenting stress, and create a family environment to reduce the impact of anxiety on the family.

Understanding ADHD (ages 6 - 12)

The child must have a diagnosis for the family to attend this program.
This program is offered virtually.

This interactive, virtual group provides an opportunity for both children and their parents to engage in learning about ADHD together over 6 sessions. Parents and children will gain further understanding of ADHD and develop strategies to support the child at home and school. Each session in broken into two parts: the first focuses on the child and engaging them in activities to teach skills such as self-regulation, while the second provides parents an opportunity to review the webinars, share ideas and build their parenting confidence.

This program offers a new approach to parenting in stressful situations and helps children build skills to manage their emotions. Parents will learn about “brain chemistry”, and what happens when a parent or child is emotionally triggered and experiencing a stress response. Participants learn how to slow down the stress response and increase likelihood that both parents and children can respond with greater intentionality rather than react, as their brain is calmed through the use of mindfulness practices.

This program was created in partnership with Dr. Karen Bax, Ph.D., Scientist, Child Health Research Institute and Adjunct Faculty, Department of Psychology, Western University.

Parenting and Separation/Divorce

This workshop is designed to provide support to separated or divorced parents. Information is provided to help parents gain an understanding of how separation and divorce affects their children, themselves and their family.

The art therapy-based program Mom’s House/Dad’s House is the program for children (ages 6 - 12). The parent must have a child participating in the children’s group to be eligible for the parenting group.