Chapter Thirteen
HEAD START'S LEGACY TO PARENTS 
Perhaps the greatest gift Head Start can give a parent is hope. And parents do leave the program with hope - the promise of a future that can become increasingly rewarding. For parents leave Head Start with more confidence in themselves as persons and are, therefore, more effective parents. They have become aware of their value and their strengths. They understand their rights and have learned to use community resources to assure these rights.

But more, parents realize they are the primary influence on their children. The way in which they view themselves will reflect how their children view them. And how well they create an atmosphere conducive to learning and growing will ensure or deny their child a better future.

A wise pediatrician, stressing to a young mother the great influence she had on her daughter, said, "Your child will become what you are." And what she really meant was that the mother's values, confidence, view of herself, and her own example, would strongly affect her child. As the child's first teachers, parents have a tremendous responsibility, for they are the most important teachers the child will ever have.

Head Start believes in parents. The parents who have completed the Head Start program will continue to provide their children with opportunities to grow and learn. The parents will continue to use the skills they have developed to pursue job opportunities. They know where to go for assistance within the community and how to work within the community system to effect the changes they need. The parents who leave Head Start have learned how meetings are conducted and how decisions are made. They have learned to speak up and out for what they believe in and need.

Head Start parents will face future encounters within the community - PTA, teachers, landlords, employers, community services, - undaunted by former fears, secure within themselves, knowledgable about their rights, and convinced that they will be heard.

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