Rob Evans left a 23-year career with Hamilton County Department of Probation Services to start his own company called Parenting Solutions which focuses on providing guidance, resources, and support for the parents of strong-willed children.
Evans
“Essentially it’s the same program that I helped teach for the Hamilton County Probation Department,” Evans told The Reporter. “I did that for 10 years. This program called The Parent Project, and it’s a 27-and-a-half-hour program for support for parents, essentially. We help give practical solutions for dealing with out-of-control behaviors.”
The program is 11 weeks long and provides an abundance of both information and resources.
“We give parents information about dealing with truancy, drug and alcohol use, runaway, incorrigible, or just strong-willed behaviors,” Evans said. “What’s cool about it is it’s not just a lecture program. We do a lot of interaction, both as facilitators, but then also the parents have their own groups that they do work in their workbooks with. They’re building relationships with other parents that are in the same type of situation they are, which is so powerful because a lot of parents feel alone, feel like nobody understands their situation, or feel like they did something wrong. So they get a lot of support from that.”
In the final weeks of the program are geared towards teaching parents how to have their own support group. Ideally, when the class is over they will launch a support group and they’ll continue to meet after the classes.
“We’ve had groups that have been meeting for years after our program was over,” Evans said. “It really is an amazing program. After 23 years of working for the probation department as a juvenile probation officer, this became my passion because I just saw how it really does transform lives and families.”
According to Evans, if you’re seeing strong-willed, kind of defiant behaviors on a regular basis that your normal parenting techniques are ineffective in dealing with, this program could help.
“We talk about the compliant child versus the strong-willed child,” Evans said. “With the compliant child, you can say, ‘Hey, I need you to wear your coat because it’s cold outside,’ and they’ll go get their coat. The strong-willed child will say, ‘I don’t need my coat. It’s not cold outside.’ And it might be negative degrees. So when you start to see that kind of behavior that and your normal parenting techniques are just not effective, that’s when you may have a strong-willed child.”
Evans stressed that there is nothing wrong with a child who has a strong will.
“It’s just going to be a different parenting experience, and we’re going to approach our strong-willed kids differently than we would a compliant child,” Evans said. “For many parents, their idea of success is to break that strong-willed in their child so they become compliant. The reality is that strong leaders are all strong-willed people. We want strong-willed people, because they’re going to lead our businesses; they’re going to change things for the better in our communities. We just have to make sure that they’re directed in the right direction, and so that’s really what we at Parent Project do.”
Evans told The Reporter his teams does not teach how to control or break what is in strong-willed kids, but to help direct that to a positive place where they can use that strong will for positive ends.
While there is a cost for the program, there are options for financial assistance if needed.
“There are some scholarships available,” Evans said. “We do have some scholarships through the Hamilton County Council on Alcohol and Other Drugs. Also, Advocate Plumbing is a company that believes in helping families, so they have also stepped up to help provide scholarships.”
Parenting Solutions is located at 605 Sheridan Road, Suite 1108, Noblesville. Learn more online at ParentingSolutionsNow.com or call (317) 399-5332.