When
Tuesday 2nd May 2017 at 19:30 until 21:30
Additional Information
Run by Care for the Family, ‘Time out for Parents: The Early Years’ starts Tuesday 2nd May from 7.30pm – 9.30pm and runs for 6 weeks. For more information contact Karen Jardine or Deborah McDonald.
About
Bringing together mums and dads to look at building healthy relationships with their babies, toddlers and pre schoolers and develop learning through fun and play. The six sessions are designed to help you negotiate the early years with confidence and build strong family relationships for the future.
How does it work?
Sharing ideas with other parents and carers is a key element. Discussions are based around real-life scenarios. Each session includes space to plan any changes you want to make in your parenting and, from week 2, an opportunity to discuss how that’s working.
What’s in the course?
The course begins by looking at what happens when we become a parent – the surprises, disappointments and joys. We consider how to develop children’s emotional security, and build the bond between parent and child through recognising their feelings, responding appropriately, listening well, and being positive in what we say. Play is important for a child’s development, and we look at ways in which we can support and encourage their growth and learning. We also consider different parenting styles, what our own particular parenting style is, and how that affects our interactions with our child.
A vital topic is boundaries and why they matter. We look at how routines and giving limited choices help reduce battles. There’s a toolkit of strategies for handling difficult behaviour and we see how we can choose one that is right for our child. As adults we have needs too, and so we think about how to meet those needs and also how we handle conflict within the family.
The final session focuses on ‘belonging’ – the importance to children of feeling part of their family – and we see how we can develop this through shared activities and creating family traditions.
Session titles
Session 1 – Expectations and realities of parenting
Session 2 – Children’s needs
Session 3 – Play and listening
Session 4 – Parenting styles
Session 5 – Discipline and safety
Session 6 – The wider family
Care for the Family website