About

Parenting: It’s a Life (PIAL) is a multi-component life skills program designed to introduce middle and high school youth and emerging adults to the emotional, social, and financial realities of parenting and provide resources to them before they reach parenthood.

The youth curriculum (7th-12th grades) includes topics such as Healthy Relationships, Cost of Raising a Child, and Resiliency. This free resource is a valuable addition to family and consumer science, life skills, health, and guidance classes. However, we also present to any class or youth-serving organization.

Mission

To equip youth and emerging adults with life skills and introduce them to the emotional, social and financial realities of being a parent by providing a free, relevant and research-driven curriculum to schools, colleges, and youth-serving agencies.

Vision

To empower youth and emerging adults to be good stewards of their decision-making responsibilities across their lifespan.

pial classroom
A presenter pointing to a graph on a projector screen
admyre presentation

Curriculum and Resources

The PIAL curriculum is divided into modules that can be used independently. The materials can be shared and adapted by teachers and youth-serving professionals. Under Creative Commons, Attribution-Noncommercial 4.0, you must give appropriate credit to Parenting: It's a Life (PIAL) including sharing our website. You may not use the information for commercial purposes.

Creative Commons License The entire curriculum is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License. This license requires only that you attribute the original content to the Iowa State University Child Welfare Research and Training Project and share your creations in a similar manner.