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The Osiris Group works with
the whole family to help them fully understand the
significance of the term "Family." Within a strong nuclear
family parents have certain roles: the male when appropriately
acculturated brings: leadership, provisions, protection and love; women when
appropriately acculturated nurture, acculturate, love and knit cohesion.
Using this standard we can see that historically, men have been seen as the
family provider, however often today mothers are the family providers.
With constantly changing roles coupled with inappropriate acculturation -
parenting has become a lost art. Parenting is totally lost when parents
come into the arena of parenthood with convoluted (unhealthy or unproductive)
notions of parenting which they then unintentionally pass onto their
children.
Clinicians at the Osiris
Group have listened repeatedly to arguments
on the issue of social acculturation. Most people argue that
acculturation is the sole responsibility of the parent(s). This
statement sounds logical and reasonable at first, but after careful
examination of the behaviors of the youths in question, we all agree that
something has gone awry. We have
coordinated the Osiris Group's collective
sixty (60) years experience in the helping profession from the public schools
and community centers to Department of Youth/Social Services and
Juvenile Justice systems to examine this problem closely. We have found
that because today’s parents were not taught the nuances of parenting
techniques their effectiveness as teachers has been rendered void. The
vast majority of African-American parents we work with are prevented
from being teachers, mentors or instructors to their offspring as a direct
result of slavery (see Post-Traumatic Slavery
Disorder). For instance, during slavery, African children did not
belong to their mothers and fathers and because of this the responsibility of
parenting the children was removed from the biological parents obligation.
Today, mothers and fathers of children in the Department
of Youth/Social Services and Juvenile Justice systems are no longer legal
guardians and because of this the
responsibility of parenting the children has been removed from the biological
parents obligation. Now that the
truth can be spoken, we have to come to grips with the many social ills which
are only in place as unattended rituals that come out of the legacy of slavery
(see Willie Lynch) such as: lack of
appropriate parental training; inability to show an appropriate range of
feelings; continuous durations of exposure to extreme stress; loss of locus of
control; total loss of appropriate communications skills; and as a direct
result an utter feeling of hopelessness.
We believe that researchers
have failed to unearth these complex facts because they are socially groomed from a
Euro-Affluent acculturation (see Post-Traumatic
Slavery Disorder).
Clinical practitioners at the
Osiris Group recognize that all traumas must be confronted face to face in
order for psychological healing to begin. That is why we have created the
“Parents as Teachers” model. The Osiris Group starts
with examining the lessons we learned from our parents.
Although we love, appreciate and respect our parents, we must now
examine the job our parent(s) did or did not do with us and we must begin to
face the truth about those experiences. We also look at the issues of:
discipline and limit setting; introspection; culture at home; child
development—tools; anger; modeling behavior; exposing children to too much
too soon; parents as educational advocates; parents as career advocates; the
culture of alcohol and drugs; financial literacy; adult relationships and
child rearing; a strategic life plan.
The Parents as Teachers model
is designed to increase a parent's self-image and self-worth as well as to
begin psychological healing. After going through our program
participants acknowledge feelings of self-actualization and a sense of freedom
from unwanted psychological baggage. For more information contact larry@osirisgroup.org. |
