Guiding Good Choices, a support program for parents and guardians of pre-teens, will be offered for the first time in Whatcom County through WSU Extension.
The program is designed for parents, guardians, teachers, counselors and anyone that works with children aged 9 through 14. It’s a five-week virtual program, with free weekly classes beginning Nov. 10.
It focuses on offering strategies for consistent discipline and positive reinforcement for children who are starting to become more independent. It also teaches youth refusal skills, so parents are equipped to teach their children how to avoid succumbing to peer pressure in safe ways.
Strengthening Families, a similar program that is intended for both kids and parents to attend, has been offered in Whatcom County for over 20 years. Attendance dipped during the pandemic, and the shift to virtual sessions presented challenges for some families. Limited access to multiple computers and unreliable internet connections made it difficult for parents and children to simultaneously participate in the classes.
Guiding Good Choices aims to reduce those barriers and make participation easier for parents.
Victoria Mayers, WSU Whatcom County Extension’s family prevention programs coordinator, said one of the more unique aspects of Guiding Good Choices is that it offers a network of parents to keep in touch with.
“When they’re done, it offers an opportunity for the parents to stay connected,” Mayers said. “That has been very successful for people who feel like they may be isolated.”
While new to Whatcom County, the Guiding Good Choices program has shown improvement in other areas where implemented. Research done by the university showed that for pre-teens whose parents completed the full course, alcohol and marijuana use decreased by 41% and the progression of serious substance abuse reduced by 54%.
Mayers likened the program to a fitness or health regiment, explaining that those that see the greatest results are those that finish the program to completion and practice at home by implementing strategies discussed in class, such as roleplaying scenarios with their children or setting up a regular family meeting structure.
She said the majority of families that join the program aren’t struggling because their kids are acting out and doing dangerous things that could get them expelled or arrested, but because they want to find strategies to discipline their children in healthy ways.
“They just want to do parenting with skills they don’t have because their parents didn’t have them,” Mayers said. “They don’t want to yell at their kids, maybe like their parents yelled at them. They don’t want to spank their children like they were spanked.”
Guiding Good Choices is available in both English and Spanish and is free. Registration is available at extension.wsu.edu/whatcom/fch/ggc/registration-2026.
