Gladiators of Change (GoC) an Anglican Trust for Women and Children’s (ATWC) recently hosted a free parenting workshop, the `Whanau Show’ a collaboration between three local schools: Riverina School, Anchorage Park School and Pakuranga Intermediate.
Hosted at Pakuranga Intermediate, after a free sausage sizzle, the popular entertainer, singer and comedian Pio Terei kept the audience engaged with sound bites from his Parenting Show.
He talked about the different types of parents and challenged those present to evaluate their own style of parenting—did their styles bringing the best out of their children?
The show was presented with humour, yet had an important underlying message and provided valuable information on communicating with kids.
Guest speakers former All Black Pita and his wife, former TrueBliss singer Megan Alatini spoke about their family, the challenges and rewards of parenting.
Megan and Pita are both busy, professional people who lived in Japan as Pita’s job as a rugby coach took him there.
They talked about the challenges of having their first daughter so young when their careers had just started. Pita also talked about his son and how he helps him with his rugby. He is very cautious not to push him into anything and waited for his son to come to him for help with training, rather than push him onto it.
The evening’s programme also included videos of students from the three schools giving their opinions on parenting.
They were asked to relate a school value to their family and explain why it represents them; the children were offered the chance to give their parents a piece of advice.
The audience laughed as Tana, from Anchorage Park School, suggested that parents should only have a maximum of three kids, “it just gets crazy after that!” he exclaimed.
There were plenty of light-hearted conversations, with lots of laughter, in a relaxed, friendly atmosphere. All the elements of the show sent a clear message on how to communicate with children … fair, firm and friendly.
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