About

Dr. Ken Resnick, Educational Psychologist and Founder of the SmartchoiceParenting Programme (SCPP), established in 2008. The principles of the SCPP are based on an educative adult-child relationship where the parent is the primary educator in guiding their child to adulthood while equipping both the adult and child with the skills needed in order for them to adequately succeed and flourish in their respective worlds.

It differs from all other researched and evidence-based parenting programmes which are aimed at assisting the parent in managing the child’s behaviour. The SCPP imparts knowledge and understanding to those who use it, explaining that it is the manner in which the child is parented that is at the core of virtually all developmental problems including learning disabilities and overall behaviour.

As an Educational psychologist at a co-educational school, Dr. Resnick has assessed over several hundred learners of varying ages, over a period of 30 years. Over the years Dr. Resnick has observed that learners often exhibited the following: low motivation, lack of perseverance, a tendency to opt out, a fear of failure and a lack of will in accepting a challenge.

These outcomes resulted in them forming a strong dependency on learning support, along with an accompanying feeling of low self-esteem. Dr. Resnick found a pattern of ‘learned helplessness’, which was also linked to children diagnosed with ‘barriers to learning’. In Dr. Resnick’s research, these learners came primarily from homes where the parents were either over-involved or over-controlling, where the children had been over-indulged, where there were no consistent rules or consequences, and where they were not shown how to take responsibility for themselves. From questions that Dr. Resnick put to parents, it seemed that clear rules with very consistent consequences were usually not present or understood by the child. This often resulted in inconsistent parenting and insecure and uncooperative children.

Through Dr. Resnicks studies, in evaluating the SCPP for his Doctorate, Dr. Resnick found a strong correlation between parenting styles and the healthy development of the child.

Dr. Resnick’s evidence based programme has shown that parents, as the primary educator, play a pivotal role in ensuring that their child develops into an independent, passionate and self-motivated individual who will be equipped to deal with the challenges that life presents. The SCPP focuses on helping parents understand that their style of parenting is at the core of virtually all of a child’s developmental problems, both behaviourally and academically.