Creating Harmony: A Guide for Families

Raising children to be happy, healthy, and socially well-adjusted is difficult for parents, particularly for immigrant and refugee parents in the United States. Often, these families live in ethnic enclaves, experience social and linguistic isolation, financial difficulties, and encounter barriers to accessing health and human services. Additionally,these parents also face unique challenges such as intergenerational conflict arising from differing rates of acculturation between parents and children to mainstream society. Children tend to adapt more quickly than their parents to Western society, and adopt its culture and values.

However, strong prosocial families are shown to be the most effective protective factor against adolescent alcohol and drug use, depression, dating abuse, violence, school drop-out, and other delinquency. "Creating Harmony” is a culturally-adapted DVD program for Asian immigrant and refugee families. It provides Asian immigrant parents with effective parenting strategies and practices to strengthen and build healthy families, and develop closely bonded parent-adolescent relationships. By featuring candid interviews with Asian parents and their children about challenges they face, the program aims to prevent adolescent substance abuse and other delinquent behaviors, and encourage positive youth development among Asian families.

Developed from a theory-based parenting program, the parenting strategies presented in this DVD program have demonstrated positive outcomes for youth during their transition to adulthood. These strategies have been culturally adapted to parents of Asian adolescents by focusing on the differences between Eastern and Western parenting styles, and addressing the acculturation gap that often results in intergenerational conflict. It is available in English, Mandarin, Cantonese, Korean, and Vietnamese.