Legal Professionals
Understand Our Mission
Kids First is a children’s rights organization. Founded two decades ago, we work to strengthen families through education and advocacy. For the child’s benefit, we favor parenting education before and during marriage, as well as for parents who are unwed, separated, or divorced. We at Kids First favor family formation and preservation; however, there are times when families break up or are never formed. In these instances, we work with the parents to help them improve the quality of the parental relationship by reducing conflict and impressing upon them the importance of providing a nurturing, non-threatening environment for their children. In this environment, children are better able to cope with the changes in their family structure and establish the paternal bonds with parents and family members. In this effort, Kids First has developed the Co-parenting Course to enable parents, step-parents, grandparents, and others to put their Kids First. We have also put this course online in a user-friendly way to make the course more convenient than ever before for parents and guardians.
Benefits to children
- Reducing their symptoms of stress as parental conflict decreases
- Increasing the likelihood of keeping 2 actively involved parents
- Diminishing their sense of needing to choose between parents
- Creating a more relaxed home atmosphere
- Reducing the likelihood of adolescent drug and alcohol problems, teen pregnancy, dropping out of school, & crime
Benefits to parents
- Teaching effective communication & conflict resolution skills
- Helping to recognize the importance of parental bonds with both parents
- Enabling parents to accept personal responsibility for their own actions
- Establishing the long-term benefits of parenting
- Acknowledging the financial responsibilities of both parents
Benefits to society
- Decreasing future litigation, court costs, and time
- Increasing the likelihood that non-custodial parents will remain active in the child’s life by keeping parents working as a cooperative team
- Diminishing the likelihood of relationship difficulties and divorce in the child’s future
- Expanding the definition of “family,” thereby preserving and strengthening the family structure
- Decreasing avoidance of financial responsibilities