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LaFollette proposed that the best way to protect children from parents’ abuse and neglect would be to implement parental licenses for prospective parents. He pointed out that the state should introduce licensing for all professions in which (1) people can harm those they serve, (2) can perform risky tasks safely only if they are competent, and (3) that the benefits of the licensing program are higher than the potential costs. This paper draws answers to challenges posed by parental licensing in a comprehensive pedagogical education of parents whose purpose is to develop good parenting to maximise the child’s welfare. Raising a child from a position where the transition to parenthood was preceded by continuous intensive pedagogical parent education aims to understand parenting as a personal maturation and growth. So, this article presents the current condition of Croatian parenting programmes.

The departure of a parent to serve a sentence of imprisonment affects the change of a family’s climate, which can be divided into three groups: (a) changes in daily life navigation and activity; (b) changes in parent-child relationships; and (c) changes in financial circumstances. The abrupt change that a child experiences can lead to the development of externalized and internalized behavioral problems, as well as changes in student academic achievement due to lack of motivation and concentration. Since the school is an educational institution that provides children with secondary socialization opportunities, it has an important role in supporting students whose parents are serving prison sentences. This paper presents research suggesting that stigmatizing students whose parents are in prison can bring shame, discomfort, and withdrawal to themselves. Considering that there are no clear suggestions on how the primary school should act when the parent goes to prison, the authors of this paper propose guidelines on minimizing the harmful consequences on socioemotional development and academic success of students whose parents go to prison.

Political knowledge and democratic attitudes are recognized in contemporary studies as important dimensions of democratic political culture. Furthermore, knowledge and attitudes can be seen as integral parts of political competence. Unlike other dimensions of political culture such as, for example, political participation, political interest, etc., research on political knowledge and democratic attitudes are more an exception than a rule. This assessment is especially true for Croatia. In this paper, we attempt to address some of these gaps by focusing on the exploration of political competences of Croatian final-year secondary school students. The paper is divided into two major sections. In the first part, we discuss the meaning and importance of political competence for the functioning of democratic political systems. The second part consists of a presentation and discussion of the research results on political knowledge and democratic attitudes of Croatian final-year secondary school students conducted in three time points - 2010, 2015 and 2021. By doing so, we want to detect the levels of political knowledge and democratic attitudes, as well as the possible changes that occurred in these levels during the research period. Finally, we are also interested in the relationship between these two dimensions of political competence.