Jayne A. Major, Ph.D. became interested in a parent education in the early '70's when she and her husband adopted two troubled foster boys.  According to their social worker, when Robert moved in with Jayne and Joe at age nine it was the 19th move in his life; they were astonished to find that they were the 27th move for his brother TJ at the end of his sixth year. It soon became clear that this well-meaning couple had invited child abuse and neglect into their home. Jayne found that instead of finding parenting easy it was the most difficult job that she ever tried to do.  At first it was easy to blame the children solely for the chronic problems that arose, but soon she realized that she was floundering in her role of being a mother.  Furthermore, it was obvious that Joe was a better parent than she was!

While Jayne was majoring in Philosophy of Education at UCLA, she realizing that she was not alone in her struggle to be a successful parent, she wrote her doctoral dissertation on the topic on how to raise responsible children. She began teaching parenting classes to a wide socio-demographic in the Los Angeles area, to learn more about problems that other parents have raising their children.

She concluded that there is a tremendous need to train parents in the most important job that they will ever have…growing the next generation to responsible, well-adjusted adulthood. She wrote a curriculum called Breakthrough Parenting:  Moving Your Family from Struggle to Cooperation.  She founded a non-profit agency, Breakthrough Parenting Services, Inc. and is the author of six books on optimal family relationships.  She is currently working on an on-line curriculum called Breakthrough Parenting in Action:  What Would YOU Do?  With the modern new insights and methods now available it isn't difficult for parents to raise healthy well-adjusted children.

She also teaches a specialized Breakthrough Parenting class for parents involved in divorce and child custody issues who are litigating in family law court.  In the first week of June 2008, she will have taught this class 50 weeks a year for 25 years!

Most of the parents she teaches are on the verge of losing custody of their children, either due to a court process or because of high conflict parents involved in family law court. She has also specialized in parental alienation and has written several articles on the subject. She has further specialized in grief recovery as so many parents she teaches are going through serious grieving over their losses.

She wasn't destined to have a happy ending with Robert and TJ.  They remained with the mentality of foster children and as soon as they were grown drifted away into their own lives.  She vowed to use education to show parents positive ways to resolve difficulty family issues and to thus prevent child abuse and neglect her lifetime.  She believes that when people know better they do better!

 

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