Course on Parenting Provides
Insights into the Family
Saint Leo University SPIRIT.SAINTLEO.EDU 21
Everyone knows that wry saying about becoming
a parent: You have to pass a test to get a driver’s
license, but not to become a biological mother
or father.
While that is still true, some Saint Leo students have
had the option of getting some excellent grounding in the
topic (with tests) through an undergraduate course called
the Psychology of Parenting. It is a junior-level course,
developed by Dr. Tammy L. Zacchilli, associate professor
of psychology, after discussion among several peers in the
discipline from various Saint Leo teaching locations. She
has taught it four times so far, every other fall, at University
Campus. The class typically fills up, or nearly does.
Psychology faculty knew the course would help students
who want to become parents at some point in life.
Another group that stands to benefit are those who intend
to go into teaching, social work, or another kind of helping
profession, she points out. “Their jobs may require them to
work with parents.”
For some reason, Zacchilli found there were only a few
sound textbooks available on the topic—though she notes
with caution for other readers that anyone can write a book
on parenting without broad knowledge of the theories on
how children develop psychologically. Still, she hunted until
she found one and supplements the reading with videos, interactive
assignments, speakers from child-related occupations,
class discussions, and a required service project.
The class lends itself to being divided into three segments,
she said. In the first part, the class reads and
discusses what psychologists have written about parenting
and discipline styles. Students are generally eager to talk
about this and compare experiences. Even though most
at University Campus have not yet had children, they think
back to their own families and have positive exchanges
about how different cultures and backgrounds play a role,
she said.
“We have students from a lot of different places,” she
reflects. Students from the Caribbean, for instance, may
have experiences that contrast with those of students from
the mainland United States.
The second portion of the course is devoted to understanding
child development, and the third to special situations
that include adoption, high-risk families, and samesex
parenting.
Emma Hutterli ’16 particularly recalls an assignment with
a delicate prop. Students were given actual chicken eggs
(with the inside liquid blown out) to carry for a week as
stand-ins for infants, meaning they were not to leave the
eggs unattended. It was “light-hearted, but the class took
it seriously,” recalled Hutterli, who is now studying for the
Master of Social Work degree from Saint Leo.
“We then talked about that experience: for example,
how was it to ask for a babysitter, what was it like taking
the eggs to class/home/the store, did any of the eggs
break over the time period?” She still has her phone photo
of her decorated egg. •
Dr. Tammy Zacchilli, a mother of three herself, has
hopes of extending the course to more Saint Leo
students by developing an online version in the
near future.
By Jo-Ann Johnston
/SPIRIT.SAINTLEO.EDU