The MIT Child Care Office has been renamed the MIT Family Resource Center, following a recommendation from the MIT Council on The Family and Work and approval by MIT President Charles M. Vest. In particular a major new parent education program offers individual consultations and more than 50 parenting workshops, courses, and support groups each year. Topics include balancing work and family, setting limits, child development, fathering, single parenting, separation and divorce, adoption, gay and lesbian parenting, grandparenthood, multicultural issues, giftedness, self-esteem, special needs, and many others. Also added to the Center has been a lending library of approximately 500 volumes and resource files on about 100 parenting and child-care topics. The Center's next series of parenting seminars and groups begins in late February, featuring new programs on positive discipline, gender development in boys and girls, handling economic stress, girls and science, caring for elders and children at the same time, alternative work schedules, special needs, African American parenting, and stepparenting.
Most programs are free of charge, and many are open to the public.