A Great Thing

Have you all heard of Par.ents as Tea.chers?  A friend of mine mentioned it to me several months back when we were at the park, and I couldn’t for the life of me understand what she was saying.  I went home and googled what I thought she might have said and up popped Par.ents and Tea.chers.  In short, it’s basically where someone comes out to your home and observes your child.  The goals of the organization are:

1. Increase parent knowledge of early childhood development and improve parenting practices
2. Provide early detection of developmental delays and health issues
3. Prevent child abuse and neglect
4. Increase children’s school readiness and school success

The first time our lady came out was the week after Chloe’s birthday.  She brought a bag full of toys; she, JJ and I sat on our living room floor, and watched Chloe explore.  She wasn’t quite walking at the time, but she would get to whatever she wanted.  The lady (her name is Ann) would give Chloe certain things to see what she’d do with it, like a small jar filled with Cheerios to see if Chloe could dump them out, see if she would bang two toys together, or she’d cover a toy with a scarf to see if Chloe would know to lift the scarf.  The first appointment she asked us a lot of questions about Chloe’s medical history and her general demeanor, and she was recording all of this in a document.  She wrote up the report and mailed it to us within a few days, and it was basically a chart showing where Chloe should be in various categories and where she actually scored.  I was impressed with how thorough it was.  If by chance Chloe had fallen below the recommended level, there were suggestions on what we could do to work with her. 

The second appointment was this past Monday.  Again, we all just sat on the floor at watched Chloe, but since she can walk now, she was all over the place.  She didn’t bring as many toys this time, but she did bring a book, clothespins (which Chloe loved to chew on)  and a container to put the clothespins in.  She gave us a lot of time to ask questions, and one of my first questions was about Chloe’s eating.  I mentioned that Chloe used to eat everything we’d give her, but now some of her old favorites she seems to hate.  Ann’s response was interesting, and Courtney and I have both tried this method and it seems to work.  She said that as kids get older and gain more independence, we tend to hover over them when they eat.  Even though we might feel like we are giving them choices by putting a variety of food on their tray at meal time, they don’t see it that way.  She said simply putting each food in its own container on the tray and letting the child pick what they want to eat might do the trick.  And sure as shit it worked!  I think Courtney had better luck than us only because we haven’t given Chloe the foods she’s been denying this week so she was open to whatever we gave her.  But we did the container trick with strawberries and she ate them right up (that was one thing she had been leaving on her tray that she used to love). 

We also talked about discipline and how or what we should be doing at this age, she said that there is the roller coaster of equilibrium and disequilibrium that happens every few months so if we are trying to do something big, like potty training or big-bed training, it’s best not to do it when the child is in the disequilibrium stage and wait a few months – most likely we will have much better results by doing it during the equilibrium stage. Definitely good information to have!

It’s so nice to get some reassurance that we are doing things right, or at least not totally wrong.  Being able to ask questions of someone who has been through raising kids and has specific training is a great help, and having her in our home where Chloe is most comfortable is nice because she gets a really good idea where Chloe is at.  I believe it is through the local school districts, and it has been great so far.  Another cool thing is they have playgroups all the time for kids.  You know how I was looking for activities for JJ and Chloe to do during the day?  They have playgroups right down the street at the elementary school two days a week!  And it’s all free!  The resources they give us at each appointment are great too, just flyers and pamphlets on development and what to expect your child to be doing at this age.  Since Chloe hadn’t been in a true daycare pretty much the entire first year of her life and I had nothing to compare her to, I just wanted to make sure she was progressing as she should, wasn’t behind developmentally, and to get some tips about what sort of activities we can do with her.  This has been great so far and I only imagine it will be something we get a lot of benefit from.