ABSTRACT
I held TA study groups for parents at three private kindergartens from 1993 to 2010. Children two to six years old attended the kindergartens before going to elementary school. These parenting classes were called ‘Mothers’ and ‘Study Room for Moms’. Each was a 90-minute session introducing a TA theory and then thinking and discussing together in the group on the possible solutions to participants’ problems. In the session, they first shared their problems, anxieties and hesitations about their child rearing and, later in the session, they became aware of some clues to help themselves. The group was a combination of sharing and discovery (Clarke 1998). I came across some common issues among the participants (mostly mothers). The issues represented their low self-esteem in child rearing or some discomfort from organizing a new family structure, which often seemed to come from symbiotic relationships with spouse, parents or parents-in-law.
