School for Moms and Dads: How to Be the Parent You Want to Be

As every sleep-deprived and emotionally frayed but loving mother and father knows, there's something they don't teach you in school: how to be a good parent.

Now a new enterprise, launched in Tribeca this month by Cheryl Lambert and Joe Dolce, is meant to do just that. Called Parent Survival School, it's a series of nine weekly, one-hour workshops at the Downtown Community Center, 120 Warren St., that addresses many of the toughest challenges that come with raising a young child: tamping down tempers, avoiding bedtime battles, setting limits, promoting healthy eating habits, and more.

The "school," which begins on Sept. 17 and allows parents to take some or all of the classes, is taught by  Dr. Alan Schlechter, the director of the Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Clinic at Bellevue Hospital, and the father of daughters, ages six and four. Schlechter also teaches "The Science of Happiness," a popular course at New York University.

In a telephone interview, Schlechter called the classes "uniquely engaging" because they emphasize the importance of the individual parent, not just the child.

"It's not about teaching skills that will turn you into the perfect parent, because that doesn't exist," Schlechter said. "It's really about helping the parent understand themselves best so that they can figure out how to work with their kids. The parent has to understand their good qualities."

More than anything, Schlechter said, parents want to know how to raise a happy child, "whether it's focusing on the child's ability to work hard, to have really good friends or to become engaged in something in life that they love to do."

"A parent is only as happy as their most unhappy child," the psychiatrist added. "But the flip side of that is a happy parent, generally, has a pretty happy child."

Schlechter said he will encourage questions from parents throughout each workshop. "I want the class to be as engaging a conversation as it can be," he noted. "Our goal is to try to create a sense of shared enlightenment."

All workshops begin at 7 p.m. and are $25 each, or $200 for all nine. ($175 before Sept. 15.) For registration and a schedule of classes click here.  For questions, write to Info@ParentSurvivalSchool.com.