Perhaps it’s not only the kids who can get back to school in September: parents might consider doing a little learning as well.

With children out of the house for six hours a day, and perhaps a little pressure to be the only caretakers for 24 hours a day lifted, parents might even find 10 to 15 minutes to themselves on occasion.

If interested, or if necessary, it might be a rewarding journey to do a little internet browsing to gather a few new ideas about parenting.

I don’t personally spend a lot of time on my computer outside of what I need to do for my work, to pay my bills and to maintain contact with my friends and family. I wasn’t raised with a computer by my side and so I tend to default to other options for my recreational time, but I will be the first to acknowledge that while there is a lot of junk swirling around in cyberspace, so too is there a great deal of worthwhile information. Whenever I do some kind of search around a parenting topic, I am always amazed at both the quantity of information I can find and the quality and variety. By the time you read 10 articles on a topic, you have likely had five different views.

Given that each parent and each child is slightly different, the variety of options you come across on the internet allows the opportunity to really think about what might work for you. Having conducted many parenting courses over the years, with the immediate disclaimer that what worked for me and my kids might not work for someone else, I am acutely aware of how difficult it is sometimes for parents to determine how best to approach particular situations. Often they are embarrassed to even bring them up in a public setting and if they do, the suggestions may not feel right for them.

The beauty of researching ideas on the internet is that you do so anonymously (which reduces the risk of feeling embarrassed), you see a lot of articles on issues that you might have felt were unique to your family, and you get a wide range of ideas and suggestions in dealing with such issues. In other words, you’ll feel safe in seeking new ideas and enriched by the number of opinions and options you’ll find. If you’re trying to do some parenting planning, it is the ideal place to do brainstorming.

I’ve used a few search ideas to pinpoint topics a bit. After all, a couple of million pages on a topic can be overwhelming. I tend to add more information in the search bar to try and narrow down the search to articles that deal more directly with a topic of interest. For example, if I’m worried about my 15-year-old getting involved in marijuana use and I’m wondering what I should do as a parent to reduce that risk, I’d type “parenting, teen, discouraging marijuana use.” This is likely to direct me to resources specific to parenting teens and to articles that refer directly to discouraging marijuana use.

If I have a child who is bedwetting at eight years of age, I’d type “parenting, child, bedwetting, training.” You can see the pattern by now. Start with parenting if you are looking for tips, then go to the age group and the issue. Most often this will bring up plenty of resources to consider. But beware, as it will also bring up some commercial sites that might appear to be opinions supporting a particular product that is being pitched. I’m not suggesting some of them might not be part of your consideration, but you just have to be careful to look through enough ideas that the first commercial one doesn’t sway you before you get additional suggestions.

The proliferation and easy exchange of information has created a wealth of learning opportunities for parents from the comfort of their home. Frankly, I still like the idea of bringing together groups of parents with kids of the same age for the face-to-face exchange of ideas that comes in parenting courses, but I know this is often much easier said than done. I don’t hesitate to encourage the use of the internet as a place to gather new suggestions.

Graham Hookey is an educator and writer (ghookey@yahoo.com).