Lea and Alan decided to carve out time in their hectic schedules for Morrison’s Incredible Years program because they assumed they didn’t know everything about raising their two four-and-a-half-year-old daughters.

“We heard about it through the Children’s Club that Indigo and Dramma [their girls] attend over in the Belmont district,” Alan says. “And it was like, hey, let’s do it, because kids don’t come with instruction manuals. There has to be more to know about raising them.”

As Alan admits, money is tight for the couple. But Morrison not only offered the Incredible Years free to them, the organization also offered dinner the night of the class and child care for the girls. “They made it pretty easy to say yes,” he says.

Although neither of their children poses a serious disciplinary problem, some issues had arisen that the parents weren’t sure how to handle. The adults entered Incredible Years with open minds, eager for answers to the recurring flare-ups.

Alan says the videos that form a major piece of Incredible Years were useful in creating dialogue about parenting techniques among the group members. “You see a 15 to 30 second clip of, say, a child on the floor playing with blocks and an adult on a sofa interacting. The clip stops, and the voice asks, ‘What did you notice about the scene?’ Well, several things come up, and as you get into the program, you see more examples of adults micromanaging their children, not letting them make their own choices.”

For Alan, the realization that perhaps parenting could be less hands-on was an oh-boy. So were scenes and discussions focusing on the links between rewards and behavior. “Sure, it’s easy to say in retrospect that you don’t reward a child for something she hasn’t done yet. But how many parents do just that? ‘Here’s a piece of candy—now go put your toys away.’ Forget it! Once the kid has the candy, who wants to do what dad asked?”

Alan is now an advocate for Incredible Years. “Every parent should go through these sessions,” he says. “It should almost be mandatory, because you can learn so much. I learned that a kid has the ability to think for her or himself, to grow at his or her own pace. The girls’ behavior is probably better, but it’s our behavior that has really improved.”

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