Parenting Program

Learn and Grow with Your Child

Deepen connections with the children in your life, learn additional parenting skills, and raise children who thrive.

NOCE’s tuition-free parenting classes provide a fantastic learning opportunity for parents and other adults at no cost. Adults who take the classes gain new ideas, learn positive parenting techniques in a friendly and safe environment, or explore intriguing topics that help enhance their own wellness and family life overall.

Parenting Class Focus Areas

• New and Special Interest Classes

  The Parenting Program offers modern, relevant learning opportunities for adults ages 18 and up. Some of the latest classes developed by Parenting Program faculty include:

  • Babies Love Music: Expectant Parents Through 14 Months (PARN 147) – coming Fall 2026
  • Healing Homes: Trauma-Informed Parenting in Foster and Adoptive Care (PARN 280) – coming Fall 2026
  • Navigating Loss: Supporting Families Through Grief and Change (PARN 355) – began Summer 2026

  Check back frequently for additional info on other new and specialty classes!
• Child and Family Wellness (Building Trauma-Informed Communities) Classes

  With the information and skill-building exercises provided in these classes, parents, family members, resource families, and other adults learn ways to develop trust, build healthy relationships, healthy behaviors, and communicate with children to be effective as a parent and develop lifelong resiliency. Adults learn how to model desired behaviors (“do as I do” skills) that reduce the effects of stress and enhance well-being of themselves and the children in their lives.

  The foundational class, Understanding Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs), introduces key concepts important to understanding parents’ and children’s childhood experiences. Pediatricians routinely assess children for ACEs because the impact of ACEs on health can be profound. 

  Other Child Wellness courses delve into a variety of other topics. For more information on Child Wellness/BTIC courses, visit the Child and Family Wellness page
• Practical Parenting: Love and Logic® Classes

  NOCE’s Love and Logic^® classes are free of charge to our community. 

  The Love and Logic^® approach to parenting helps adults raise self-confident, motivated children who are ready for the real world. Love and Logic® classes provide loving, yet powerful tools for parenting young children, adolescents, teens and even adult children. 

  NOCE’s Love & Logic® classes provide skills that parents, resource families, grandparents, and caregivers of school-age and teen children, or teachers, can use right away. The course skills include techniques for creating positive relationships. Love and Logic® skills also provide a method for adults to encourage children to develop age-appropriate self-reliance and good decision-making skills.

  Courses include:

  • Parenting the Love & Logic Way^®
  • Love and Logic: Supporting Youth with Challenging Pasts^®
  • Love and Logic: Supporting Youth with Special Needs^®

  For more information, view the Love and Logic® page.
• Child-and-Me Classes

  Child-and-Me classes promote bonding and expand adults’ knowledge and skills to support the physical, mental, and social-emotional development of children through music, movement, reading, arts, crafts, games, field trips, and more.

  Child-and-Me courses are offered in a hybrid modality, in which enrolled adults enjoy weekly in-person class meetings and weekly online learning activities, too. 

  Note: In Child-and-Me courses, a parent or other adult (including moms, dads, grandparents, resource families, nannies, or other adults) is the registered NOCE; the adult student must attend all of the course meetings with the child.

No-Cost and Convenient Parenting Courses

NOCE Parenting Courses are free and are for any adult who loves or cares for children, including caregivers and any adult family member. Parenting Courses are convenient – available at NOCE centers, community locations, and online. 

View the current NOCE Course Schedule to browse Parenting Program courses. Start dates vary. Plan to enroll when registration opens and two weeks in advance of the course start date if possible. (Note: NOCE Parenting Program offers open enrollment so you can join a class already in session if space permits.)

Student Spotlight

Raúl Güereque

NOCE Parenting Program Student

Raúl Güereque, a stay-at-home father and longtime educator, discovered NOCE’s Parenting Program through the California Community Colleges website. Although not local to the area, he was drawn to the program’s flexible, tuition-free online courses—an ideal fit for his lifestyle while raising two young daughters. Having stepped away from the classroom, Raúl was looking for a way to stay mentally engaged and grow as a parent beyond books and podcasts. NOCE offered him the opportunity to reconnect with education, focus on personal development, and build confidence during his healing journey.

Since joining, Raúl has experienced meaningful growth in both his parenting and personal relationships. The supportive environment—shaped by educators like Parenting Instructor Chivonne Carter and fellow parents—has helped him feel connected and empowered. He hopes to return to teaching in the future, potentially focusing on parenting or mental health, areas where he’s found renewed passion. Raul highly recommends the Parenting Program to any parent seeking connection, growth, and practical tools for everyday life.