NPEN Advisors

Harriet Heath

Harriet Heath Ph.D., is a licensed developmental psychologist, certified school psychologist, parent educator, mother of three and grandmother of eight. She is the founder and director of the Parent Center at Bryn Mawr College which provides parent programs at the college and in the community. She is currently on the faculty of the University of DePaul in Chicago.

Harriet’s research has focused on an analysis of the parenting process, i.e. how parents go about doing what they do and how being a parent affects their own development. Earning her Ph.D. from Bryn Mawr College, her dissertation on Erik Erikson’s generativity stage of development, investigated the role of information and support in determining parental behavior. She has assisted her husband in his longitudinal study of men and women who graduated from college in the late fifties. Her part in this research has been to examine the effects of being a parent on the participants’ maturation and how those effects have changed over time. She has written a theory of parenting which identifies the parenting process. A theory about which she is currently conducting further research.

She has evolved an approach to parenting out of her own experiences as a parent, her research, and her strong commitment to the belief that parents are the people best able to plan for and guide their families. Her manual for parents, Planning: A Key to Mastering the Challenge of Parenting, gives parents a system for deciding how they want to nurture and guide their children.Harriet’s newest book, Using Your Values to Raise Your Child to be An Adult You Admire, focuses on using values in that system. The discussion series, Parenting Creatively, leads parents through this system as they discuss their issues and concerns. Harriet’s work in parenting led her to investigate how people learn to care. Her experiences teaching caring in schools and other settings gave her the background for writing the curriculum, Learning How to Care, which teaches elementary and middle school students how to care by their learning what is involved in being a parent. She has trained others all over the world in the use of both programs. Her forthcoming book for parents describes how parents can use their values to guide how they decide to nurture their children.

Harriet has worked extensively with parents in many settings, including public and private schools in the United States and overseas, religious and social service settings. She works with parents whose children range in age from newborn to young adulthood. She has trained other professionals and presents regularly at professional conferences.

Harriet Heath, Ph.D., Director

The Parent Center
Child Study Institute and Thorne School
Bryn Mawr College Bryn Mawr, PA 19010
610 649 7037

Send mail to
223 Buck Lane
Haverford, PA 19041

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