Refugee and immigrant families come to the United States with a wealth of parenting strengths, drawing on culture, tradition and family experience. Like most parents in the U.S., they tend to be responsible and nurturing, and have often sacrificed tremendously to provide their children with an opportunity for safety and success in this new country.

At the same time, it is clear that newcomer parents often need assistance adapting to: a new physical environment with unaccustomed dangers; the loss of extended family and community support; the ineffectiveness (and sometimes illegality) of traditional methods of discipline; and their children’s new and often unfamiliar “Americanized” behaviors. Unfortunately, the challenges of parenting in a new environment, combined with difficult financial circumstances and the stress of family role changes, can sometimes lead to these newcomers’ involvement with the child welfare system.

This booklet was created for agencies serving refugees and immigrants in order to support their efforts to ensure that newcomer parents have the basic information they need about U.S. laws and parenting practices. Although newcomers may find the booklet useful by itself, it is primarily intended for case managers and other service providers to use together with their refugee and immigrant clients.

The booklet, Raising Children in a New Country: An Illustrated Handbook, is targeted to newcomer parents with low levels of English proficiency and/or low literacy levels. Since the often complex concepts illustrated here are necessarily simplified, the resource section (pages 28-31) provides easy-to-access information for service providers to supplement the basic points in this booklet.

For best results, BRYCS recommends using this booklet in culturally appropriate parent support groups, preferably run by at least one experienced newcomer parent of the same ethnicity and one U.S.-born parent, where refugee and immigrant parents can ask questions, try out new behaviors, and find positive support to help ease their transition.

This illustrated booklet emphasizes the following five themes:

1) Nurture: Since the pace of life is often fast in the U.S. and both parents may be expected to work, finding time to spend with children can be challenging. Activities such as family meals and bedtime can be important opportunities for nurture and for continuing cultural traditions.

2) Supervision/Protection: Parents are responsible for supervising their own children in the U.S.—both inside and outside the home—and for keeping children safe from harm.

3) Structure/Limits: In this fast-paced life, it helps children if parents maintain a daily schedule/routine and set limits or rules (about things such as eating junk food; using the Internet, video games, or TV; helping with household chores; and playing with friends). Such structure can also help support and reinforce discipline and respect.

4) Discipline/Respect: Discipline methods vary by culture. Common methods in the U.S. include positive reinforcement, time outs, limiting privileges, or establishing consequences. It is important to know what is acceptable here and what is not, so that newcomer families can then adapt these methods for their own use, or come up with blended methods that work for their family. Regardless, discipline is most effective when applied consistently and when desired behavior is modeled by parents.

5) Educational Participation: The expectation for parental involvement in children’s education is new to some refugee and immigrant parents, since education is viewed as primarily the teacher’s responsibility in many countries. In the U.S., parents are expected to participate in their children’s education by meeting with teachers and attending school events; at home, parents can assist with their children’s homework and encourage regular reading and other educational activities.

This booklet focuses mainly on parenting younger children. Establishing good communication and discipline when children are younger provides an important basis for maintaining good relationships with teenagers. (From Introduction)

Download Raising Children in a New Country: An Illustrated Handbook

PDF format, 1.4MB, 37Pages.

CONTENTS:

Sleeping and Waking
Going to School
Meals and Nutrition
Street Safety
Car Safety
Seatbelts
Home Safety
Child Supervision
Safety in Public Places
Showing Children Attention
Discipline
Time Outs
Rewards and Consequences
Privileges and Limits
Table of Contents
Child Protective Services (CPS)
Prepared to Learn
Schools
After School
Junk Food
Eating Together
Household Chores
Hygiene, Breastfeeding
Bedtime
Parenting in a New Country:
Summary
References
Resources
Acknowledgments

ABOUT BRYCS:

Bridging Refugee Youth and Children’s Services (BRYCS), a project of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), provides national technical assistance to “bridge the gap” between public child welfare and other mainstream organizations, refugee and immigrant serving agencies, and newcomer communities.

BRYCS’ overarching goal is to strengthen the capacity of service organizations across the United States to ensure the successful development of refugee and newcomer children, youth, and families through targeted training, consultation, development of cutting-edge resources, and a Web-based clearinghouse.

Please visit www.brycs.org for more information.

BRYCS is supported by the Office of Refugee Resettlement, Administration for Children and Families, Department of Health and Human Services, Grant No. 90 RB 0022. Any views expressed in BRYCS’ resources are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent views held by the Office of Refugee Resettlement.

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