Strong relationships make for happy families and, not surprisingly, best child development.
Supporting those important relationships between parents and young children is a primary goal of the early childhood educators at the Cochrane Parent Link Centre. We encourage positive approaches to parenting, including the use of natural and caring responding. Natural responding includes trusting your own observations of your child and paying attention to the message, whether the message comes through behaviour or talking, and responding to those messages in ways that are suited to the age and abilities of the child. Research shows that natural responses boost child adjustment and development, and are often used by parents unconsciously.
However, in today’s complex world with a sometimes overabundance of information, parenting can seem like a competition and parents don’t trust their intuitions. Parents may feel that they need to be constantly up to date with the newest gadgets so as not to not miss opportunities for developing their children’s brains.
Parents may feel scrambled to get their infants and children developing faster and behaving better, sometimes before children are developmentally ready. Parents may not realize that this hurrying can actually harm their children. A need to be ahead of the game and to ensure that our children develop and behave in the best possible way puts a lot of pressure on families. When parents feel pressured, so do their children, which may create a cascade of family worry.
The joy of one of the most important and rewarding jobs in the world, being a parent, can be drained.
It is important to remember on Family Day that those old fashioned, routine and play based interactive activities like peek-a-boo, walking in the park together observing nature, reading favorite books over and over, talking and singing in the car, eating together around the family table - those everyday learning opportunities are the true magic moments in families. Time interacting with loving people is what ultimately and positively wires a child’s brain to ensure they become intelligent, confident, curious, and talented adults.
Staff at the Parent Link Centre know that babies are born with an appetite to learn. Children are naturally curious about the world and are eager to explore it through activities that suit their developmental stage. We provide natural learning opportunities through the medium of play for parents and their children. We also know that Cochrane families want to do and be the best they can, so we support them with programs, education, and resource materials for that purpose.
What children need is you; caring, accepting, responding you, in confident, predictable family environments. That is the magic!
Visit us at the Parent Link Centre. New information and education programs for parents and families start every month, and the drop-in facilitated playtimes are always open.
Shirley Leew is Cochrane Parent Link Centre Program assistant and can be reached at [email protected]
