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March 01, 2006
Parents Are Parents Are Parents
Last night I had this wonderful opportunity to work with a group of foster parents in Yuba City. Leah Eneix, the Program Specialist from Yuba College, had gotten my name from a friend. She'd called and asked me to come talk to her group about activities parents could do with their kids.
Of course I was delighted, and even more so when I met the group of people who were taking her class in foster care education. I hadn't realized there was such a program, but I can tell you I'm glad there is. It isn't easy to be a parent anyway, but several of these folks were parenting under even more difficult circumstances then usual.
Christina and Brian, with two of their own, are planning to foster parent medically fragile children. Brian's sister, Kelly, is already doing so. They have plenty of experience since Brian and Kelly's mom has been doing foster care for years.
Phyllis and Mary are dealing with grand and great grandchildren. Edna and Bill are each working with their own and their grandchildren, while Shirley and John have eight of their own and now have adopted two more.
How do you thank people who have willingly taken on the responsibility of raising children who aren't their own and who may have significant challenges. I know, you can't fully, but most people who do this don't do it for the thanks. We do these things because we want to and because of what we believe we can do for kids. Gee, sounds like why a number of us went into education.
Last night this group did some fun activities around playing and learning. I believe they got several new ideas for their kids. I know I did.
Try this one. If you've got young ones learning letters of their name, let them make a bracelet or necklace of beads. There are all kinds of beads at the hobby stores these days. Be sure to get the ones with the letters and show them how to string the beads so they can get the letters of their name in the right order into their art work. Cereal or soup with alphabet letters are fun too, but they don't quite string together well. Wearing your name around on your wrist is a fun way for a child to show people their name as well as tell someone who they are. Great for word and letter recognition too. Thanks John.
Great group. I enjoyed it and truly appreciate what they do.
Posted by Dr Joni at March 1, 2006 06:02 AM