Dear Friends,

Welcome to my Website on parent leadership.

Please let me introduce myself.
I work as an educational consultant specializing in family life and family-school
relationships. For the past 25 years, I have written books for parents and have given conferences
throughout the world. I've spoken to groups of parents and educators in nearly every major city
in the United States and Canada as well as in England, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand,
Singapore, The Philippines, Trinidad, and other countries. Everywhere, I have found
conscientious parents sharing the same concerns for their children's futures.

"I sure wish I had known all this 25 years ago!" That's what I've sometimes been told after
my conferences on successful parent leadership. The words, said in humor but sometimes with
wistful regret, came from older parents whose children had already grown and left home.

To come right to the point here, I have written my books on parent leadership, the fruit of
my many years' experience with families, so that you, a young parent, won't have to express this
same regret in the future. I've written them so that you can form a clearer idea of how other
parents have lived as great leaders in family life and have succeeded with their sacred mission: to
raise their children right. I want to help you form a "job description," so to speak, on how to
succeed as a leader to your children.

Countless people, I'm pleased to say, have gratefully told me how my experienced advice
led them to be more confident and effective in family life.

Prompted by this support from so many people, I've set up this Website as an informational
service and a source of encouragement to parents--men and women who want to become more
confident family leaders, more effective in carrying out their great responsibility as fathers and
mothers.

I have also included notes of experience for teachers, many of whom are parents
themselves, and whose professional dedication benefits so many families.

I'm pleased to say that tens of thousands of people access this Website each year, and they
download countless folios on various family topics.

Before getting into the details of the Website and how to use it, let me explain my personal
background.

I am an educator. For 21 years, I worked to help establish two independent secondary

schools for boys, one in Washington, DC and the other in Chicago--namely, The Heights School
and Northridge Preparatory School, respectively. At Northridge, I served as headmaster for
almost a dozen years. By any measure, I'm pleased to say, both of these schools have been
successful. That is, by collaborating with parents, they've turned out many excellent young adults
who bring honor to their families through their strong character and right living.

During that time, I made it my business to know hundreds of families intimately, and I
studied their family lives up close. I watched children grow into maturity, very often successfully
but sometimes not. Over many years I talked with hundreds of fathers and mothers, visited their
homes, asked questions, learned a lot.

All this I did for one reason: I wanted to learn how parents succeed or fail with their
children.

Let me be clear here. When I say "succeed or fail," I don't mean parents' methods of
discipline, or how they keep kids under control, or how they handle hassles in family life. These
are short-term achievements but only part of the picture.

Parents really win success with their children only in the long term. Parents succeed with
their children when the youngsters grow up to become competent, responsible, considerate, and
generous men and women who are committed to live by principles of integrity--adults who bring
honor to their parents all their lives through their conduct, conscience, and character. Raising
children to become adults like this is what parenthood is all about.

I watched many parents succeed this way, while others failed--and their children eventually
left our schools. Some parents saw their children mature into excellent men and women, often
before they left high school. Others--especially as their children struggled through adolescence
and young adulthood--met with disappointment, regret, and even tragedy. Their young people
suffered from lack of self-confidence and self-control, substance abuse, protracted immaturity,
irresponsible and self-destructive behavior, aimlessness in life, troubles with careers or marriages
or the law.

Through my countless conversations with fathers and mothers, I tried to account for the
differences. I looked for patterns of family life among those people who eventually triumphed
with their children. What did these successful fathers and mothers have in common? What was
their compass? What did they manage to do right? And most importantly, what could parents and
teachers learn from their experience?

Starting in 1989, I began writing what I had learned and giving lectures to  parents and
educators throughout the world.

What follows below in this Web page are several "folios," just a few pages long, on
different aspects of parent leadership. Each folio is an edited excerpt from my books--especially
my new works, Compass: A Handbook on Parent Leadership and Father, the Family Protector--
or summaries of my lectures to parents and educators.

I offer these folios to help you learn from the experience of others and to think deeply
about your job as a parent. In my experience, busy parents today need to think carefully about
what they're doing to raise their children well, that is, to become men and women of conscience
and character. After all, parents have one chance--and only one--to raise their children right.

What's more, each folio here can be used by groups of parents who learn from each other
and support each other through discussion groups with friends. This is a growing movement in
the United States: friends from neighborhoods or churches joining together to think about their
most important common concern, the later success of their children as grown men and women,
adults who bring honor to their families, and how to bring this about. All of this is explained
below.

It's important for you to understand something at the outset: What I lay out for you in these
folios is descriptive, not prescriptive. That is, I don't claim to have all the answers about family
life, and I don't know anyone who does. What I'm doing here is describing the kind of thinking
and action--the compass of parenthood--that great parents have lived by and taught me in the
course of my professional career. Take it or leave it, some or all of it, as you see fit.

A couple of final points.

First, if you wish to read my most recent books, they are:

Compass: A Handbook on Parent Leadership

Lifeline: The Religious Upbringing of Your Children

 James B. Stenson
Educational Consultant
Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts
jbstenson@earthlink.net

http://www.parentleadership.com/

The Parents’ Leadership Council (PLC) is comprised of a select group of parent

volunteers who play a leadership role at Fordham University. PLC members are
University ambassadors, representing Fordham through a variety of outreach and
development activities. Members attend two meetings, one at Family Weekend in the
fall and one in the spring. At these meetings, council members learn about the latest
University initiatives and provide feedback to administrators. Each PLC member (or
couple) makes an annual gift to the University. When possible, council members
facilitate career networking and internship opportunities for qualified Fordham students
and graduates.

Advocate
 Share the University’s mission and values; encourage families you know to
apply.
 Attend and/or host Fordham receptions, dinners, lectures, and other gatherings
in your community that are attended by alumni and interested students and families.
 Serve as parent ambassadors at welcome receptions for both prospective and
admitted families in your area.

Facilitate
 Help identify career opportunities for students and graduates, from shadowing
and internship positions to employment.
 Mentor current students, helping them translate their academic success into
career development.
 Leverage corporate relationships to create enhanced opportunities for students.

Contribute
 Make a minimum annual gift of $5,000 and consider a major contribution during
or after tenure on the council.
 Identify families who might be able and willing to support Fordham University.

Membership Benefits
 Recognition of your annual gift of $5,000 or more in Fordham’s Review of Gifts
and Benefactors.
 Please advise if you would like $2,000 to be applied toward two tickets to the
Fordham Founder's Award Dinner on Monday, 27 March 2017 at the Waldorf Astoria,
New York. You will also be invited to a special VIP reception beforehand. This annual
black tie event benefits the Fordham Founder's Undergraduate Scholarship Fund.
 Exclusive invitations to events on campus and in your local community.
 Complimentary tickets to cultural exhibitions and athletic events.
 Meet University leaders and trustees at PLC meetings and the VIP reception at
the Fordham Founder's Dinner.
 Invitation to the annual President’s Club reception.
 Honored seating and special participation at Commencement.
https://www.fordham.edu/info/21878/parents_leadership_council