Monthly Chapter Meetings

American Mother Chapter Presidents,

School has started which often means balancing even more activities including household tasks, sports commitments, homework, lessons, and community and religious responsibilities. Our children are sometimes faced with difficulties at school and outside influences that can often be negative. Therefore it is critical for them to receive positive, encouraging and loving reinforcement in the home. We hope the monthly chapter meetings are providing learning opportunities that will help each of us to become better mothers and parents. Some groups have taken the summer off and are starting to meet again. I would like to take this opportunity to encourage chapters to study Dr. Glen Latham’s book The Power of Positive Parenting. Cecelia Benson, our state AMI president has challenged chapters to use this book as a course of study in their monthly meetings or to set aside a few months to study some of the basic parenting principles in this book. I know if we study and implement even a few of Dr. Latham’s principles we will be able to respond to challenges in parenting in a more positive and loving way.

Here are a few suggestions of how we can use Dr. Latham’s parenting materials:

1 Study a chapter a month and have a member present a 1⁄2 hour lesson which teaches the principles and summarizes the chapter. Several chapters are currently doing this and have found great success. They have found the number of members in their chapter have increased because of the content of their monthly meetings. Examples of these chapter’s monthly meetings are available to anyone who is interested.

2 Dedicate a few months to Dr. Latham’s principles on how we can be better parents/mothers. Have guest speakers or use current chapter members to speak using his materials. The first several chapters of his book give the basic principles and then the rest of the book addresses specific challenges and how to implement the principles in these challenges.

3 Poll the members in your chapter and determine some issues they would like to address (tantrums, how to be positive when your kids are not, tattling, anger management, etc.) and then have a speaker cover this topic using Dr. Latham’s materials.

I am the education coordinator for American Mothers here in Utah. I am willing to speak at your monthly American Mother’s meetings to help you get started on using his book as a monthly topic of study or to
be a guest speaker of specific topics. I can also help line up a few additional speakers if you decide to dedicate several months to Dr. Latham’s teachings. I want to help your chapter be successful in any way I can. If you are interested in implementing the suggestions above and/or have any questions, please feel free to contact me by email or phone.

Emily Peterson
emilyp@quikcheck.net
435-787-1820