The Dallas County Family Resource Center (DCFRC) is gearing up to offer its four-week parenting class, which will launch Feb, 5 at 10 a.m. in the Spire Auditorium at 10096 Highway 14 West.

The course will take place in eight courses, which will be taught every Tuesday and Thursday, and will cover a variety of parenting topics, including feeding, bathing and caring for babies, early brain development, managing emotional responses and more.

Participants will also receive CPR training and learn to discipline children in a healthy way, a topic that DCFRC Social Work Consultant Jan Justice says is very important.

“Children don’t come with owner’s manuals,” Justice said. “A lot of times, our lower income families have children at a very young age. They parented how they were parented and maybe that included being yelled at or not being treated right. We’re trying to break that cycle.”

Participants in the class will receive “baby bucks” that can be spent in the center’s Baby Store, which houses lightly used baby equipment, furniture, clothing, toys and more.

Additionally, parents will receive a variety of resources, including books and other educational materials, and every participant who attends at least six classes will receive a brand new Graco “Pack and Play” with fitted sheets provided by the Cribs for Kids program.

Lunch is also provided for each class.

“They really get a lot,” Justice said. “It’s a very good class.”

The classes are made possible through a grant from the Alabama Department of Child Abuse and Neglect Prevention and a partnership with the Auburn University Cooperative Extension System and the Cribs for Kids program.

Sallie Hooker with the Cooperative Extension System, a certified Family Life Educator with many years of experience, will lead the class, which will be based on the Principles of Parenting curriculum.

The class is held semi-quarterly, with the next one scheduled for June, and Justice said there are generally 15 to 20 participants.

“We’ll have young mothers and grandmothers,” Justice said. “We have dads, too.”

Justice said the class is extremely beneficial to young fathers, many of which may have lacked a father in the home as a child or maintained a tenuous relationship with the one that was there.

“They don’t even understand the importance of a father’s role,” Justice said.

For more information or to reserve your spot in the class, call 334-874-7785 or visit www.selmadallasfamily.org.