 |
Connecting!
Parents Leadership Institute's E-Mail Newsletter
Volume 4, Number 6 -- September 9, 2004
|
|
|
 Contents |
|
|
|
Hand in Hand Events Calendar  |
|
News
 |
If You Like Us Virtual, You'll LOVE Us In Print! |
|
Hand in Hand Receives Taproot Grant |
|
Introducing Sharon Alva |
|
PlayMornings in September and October |
|
Tantrum Training offered in San Bruno and Berkeley |
|
Berkeley Tantrum Training Will be Signed |
|
Matching Grant Fundraising Nets $8700 |
|
Database Renovation Project Underway |
|
|
Parenting Tip: Special Time and Staylistening Strengthen Family Bonds |
|
Parent Success Story: Working Together to Help Our Daughter Sleep |
|
Announcements |
|
|
| Hand in Hand Events Calendar |
|
|
|
| Santa Clara & San Mateo Counties |
|
| Santa Cruz County |
|
| San Francisco County |
|
| Alameda and Contra Costa Counties |
|
| Marin County |
|
| Lake Tahoe |
|
| Los Angeles County |
|
| San Diego County |
|
|
| News |
|
|
|
If You Like Us Virtual, You'll LOVE Us In Print!
|
Hand in Hand will begin publishing a quarterly newsletter this November.
The new Hand in Hand News will include in-depth articles about parenting and caregiver issues, information about Hand in Hand, course listings, and answers to parenting questions. If there is something particular you'd like us to address in this new newsletter please drop us an email and share your thoughts. We'd also like to hear from you if you have specific parenting questions you'd like to see addressed in Hand in Hand News.
If you're on our mailing list you'll receive this newsletter. If we only have your email address and you want to receive the newsletter (and we know you do) just email us your postal address and put "Newsletter" in the subject line.
|
Hand in Hand Receives Taproot Grant
|
Hand in Hand has received a Taproot Foundation grant for branding and identity. Our booklets will be receiving a facelift, to help them visually project the respect, hope and tools for connection that Hand in Hand offers parents and children. The project will take about 5 months, and will involve a volunteer team of experts in branding and identity. Our publications will sport their new "look" sometime next spring.
|
Introducing Sharon Alva
|
We welcome Sharon Alva, Fund Development and Marketing Director, to our staff. Sharon is a fund developer, documentary film maker, and mother of an inspiring toddler. Her arrival means change and growth for Hand in Hand, and we welcome her expertise. Our thanks to the Bella Vista Foundation for funding Sharon's position for a year.
|
PlayMornings in September and October
|
Bring your child to a Hand in Hand PlayMorning, and enjoy the chance to do Special Time and have your child build play relationships with other caring adults. You'll be listened to and coached in Listening Tools. Children remember these mornings for the fun and freedom they have for a long time! There's a PlayMorning for younger children September 18th, and one for older children October 16th. Space is limited, so sign up now!
|
Tantrum Training offered in San Bruno and Berkeley
|
We're offering our wonderful Tantrum Training course--three weeks during which you can gain new and effective tools for handling your child's emotions--in San Bruno in October and in Berkeley in November. The course is designed for parents of toddlers, but parents of preschool-age children, caregivers, and grandparents will also find them helpful. Child care is available for an additional fee for the Berkeley class. See our Events Calendar for details.
|
Berkeley Tantrum Training Will be Signed
|
Hand in Hand will offer sign language interpretation at the Tantrum Training class in Berkeley. Please help spread the word to hard of hearing and deaf parents!
|
Matching Grant Fundraising Nets $8700
|
We extend enthusiastic thanks to our many donors, who made this drive successful! This summer, Hand in Hand was able to give participation scholarships for leadership training to 12 parent leaders from Santa Cruz, Santa Clara and San Mateo Counties. We subsidized a series of talks for 40 parents whose children were enrolled in the Freedom School at the Third Baptist Church in San Francisco this summer. And we subsidized three talks for Spanish speaking parents through the Women's Crisis Center - Defensa de Mujeres, in Watsonville, CA.
This fall Hand in Hand will work with parents of disadvantaged middle school and high school students who are involved in college preparation programs run by the Haas School of Business at the University of California, Berkeley. We will continue to do outreach work, thanks to your generosity.
|
Database Renovation Project Underway
|
With a donated late model computer and good help from Wellspring Data, Hand in Hand is about to install a database that will allow the organization to grow and foster its connections with parents, organizations, donors, volunteers, and newsletter subscribers. We're excited about the efficiency we'll gain. This move forward is made possible by the Bella Vista Foundation, which is supporting infrastructure development with a $50,000 grant to Hand in Hand.
|
|
| Parenting Tip |
|
|
|
| Special Time and Staylistening Strengthen Family Bonds |
| |
Listening is a powerful tool for building connections with our children. It's also a powerful strategy for building closer relationships between adults. When listening skills like Special Time and Staylistening are applied to adult relationships, healthier bonds can emerge, and parents' lives improve.
A Santa Cruz mother of two shared this story with us. She emigrated from Mexico 25 years ago. She is now in her late 30's. For the past two years she has been involved with the Parents Leadership Institute, and she practices Parenting by Connection with her children. She is an assistant Hand in Hand teacher.
"Since I've become an adult, I've had a very difficult relationship with one of my brothers, who lives in Mexico. The way he relates to my parents and his harshness with his children made me very uncomfortable.
A lot of things happened to my brother growing up. My Dad left home when he was five. He was beaten up often by other kids at school. When he was seven, my mom told him she was going to a nearby town and would bring him an orange when she returned. She never came back. He feels that her promise of an orange when she knew she wasn't coming back was as hurtful as the fact that she left. As a result of this and other broken promises, my brother doesn't trust people. I decided I wanted to be closer to him
Instead of always talking to his wife when I phoned, I decided to call to talk specifically with him. I told him I wanted him to know me. I apologized from the bottom of my heart for a time when we were children when I hit him very hard. We were so young, and under so much pressure from hard times in our family.
I told him that I'm learning to listen, and I started calling him every week. The first time he opened up to me, he told me about a traumatic experience that happened when he was little. He said "I'm shaking." I said, "You didn't get to tell anyone about this then, so of course you still have feelings. You're releasing tension. It's just fine."
When I called him the following week, he told me that because of a dispute with a co-worker, he quit his job. He said, 'I just walked off and quit. Then I thought about it for a long time. I called my boss, and asked to talk to him about my problem with this guy. I did, and my boss gave me my job back.' He trusted his boss enough to talk to him! I thought this was really big progress.
Of my six brothers, I'm now closest to him. We really listen to each other. It was important that I did exactly what I said I was going to do. I told him I would call him on Mondays. Every Monday, when we talked, I didn't criticize him, I just listened to him talk about his life and his feelings.
When I went to see him this summer, we began talking about my Dad. He and Dad are having a really hard time with each other. When he started telling me the details of his experience with Dad, I turned off the TV. I looked into his eyes. He soon began to cry. When he wanted to change the subject, I said I knew that it hurt, and that I wanted to hear about the hardest things, because he had never been able to tell anyone. Then he cried with me for a while longer. It was a huge breakthrough.
My brother trusts me now. He is still hard on his children. There are thousands of things I could fault him for. But I don't judge him anymore. We talk about listening, and he asks me what I think about how to treat children. He told me, 'All I wanted was for someone to care about what happened to me.' My decision to listen to him has made a huge difference in our relationship, and I feel sure that, as I listen, more good things will happen with him."
|
|
|
|
| Parent Success Story |
|
|
|
| Working Together to Help Our Daughter Sleep |
I am the mother of a 2 year old who would not go to sleep without me. She had climbed out of her crib at 15 months and we had never gone back to having her sleep on her own. Using Staylistening, as you suggested, we were able to get her to go to bed on her own and stay there in less than a week!
Before the presentation you gave, our bedtime "ritual" had become a nightmare. I knew I was at the end of my rope when I found myself holding the door shut while my two year old tried to open it from the other side! That's frustration.
It would typically take us an hour to an hour and a half to put her to bed. And only Mama could do it. If I did not lay down with her, she screamed hysterically and would not stay in bed, ultimately she would come downstairs to find us. After returning her to her bed 2 or 3 times we would give up and lay down with her. Great stamina on her part. Poor willpower on ours. But I didn't want to leave her crying alone.
If I lay down with her, she would delightedly do somersaults and "play" until she was exhausted. Usually it took an hour or more. We always started at 7:30 and I usually walked out of her room at 9:00 or later.
We did try a number of other things besides letting her cry herself to sleep. We tried playing music to represent bedtime, we tried both lights on and lights off, we let her stay up with her books as long as she did not leave her bed, we let her have any variety of favorite dolls to go to bed with. Nothing worked and we were very frustrated.
So my husband and I teamed up as you suggested. He sat next to her on the bed, and I moved away from her until she started crying. I got as far as the middle of the bed, right behind my husband. The first night she predictably sobbed and kept saying "Why mommy, Why? Please lay down with me". It broke my heart but you had given me the confidence to keep going, using the idea that these were the feelings she needed me to hear. My husband kept her from clinging to me, and kept laying her back down on her pillow. I reassured her that I would not leave until she was ready. I told her she was a big girl and that she could sleep by herself now, but that I would not leave until she was ready to have me do so. I repeated that many times. I was able to move to the end of the bed and she fell asleep within 20 minutes. A miracle for the first night, but it gets better.
With my husband sitting close to her and laying her back down, the 2nd night went even smoother. I was able to walk completely out of the room within 5 minutes. She never even cried. I kept reassuring her anyway, telling her she could do this and that I would just be in the other room and that she would be OK, and she seemed to accept that.
The 3rd night I just kissed her goodnight and told her what a big girl she was for sleeping in her bed by herself. My husband was able to leave in 15 minutes.
The 4th night she went to bed by herself Each subsequent night we read her a story and sang one song. We reminded her that we were just downstairs or in the next room and that she would be fine.
We did have a relapse about a week later. We went back to the steps we had taken the first night. It took 2, maybe 3 nights to get back to where we were and we have been mostly successful ever since. Naps have been a dream, absolutely no problem at all since we changed our routine.
It seems like the main drivers were the reassurance that she would be OK and that we were close by. I also believe that listening to her cry relieved her of the bad feelings that she was having, and yet having me and my husband there helped her to feel safe. I guess that I too needed reassurance that it was OK for her to cry, that it was actually necessary to help her through her fears. Whatever the reason, we were successful with the idea of Staylistening. And we felt good about the process--we got to support her and be firm with her all at the same time. Thank you.
--a mother in Sonora, California
|
Send in Your Stories!
Please send your stories of how you've used the Parenting by Connection approach to parenting. We'd love to hear about what you've learned, and to share it with other parents. |
|
|
| Announcements |
|
|
|
Donate to Hand in Hand
|
To give a tax-deductible donation to Parents Leadership Institute, click here. It only takes a moment! We'd love to add you to the Hand in Hand Family of Donors.
|
We Love Your Feedback!
|
We'd like to hear how you're using the parenting tips and articles we're sending you. If you duplicate our articles for your parent group, nursery school, or church or temple Sunday school, please let us know. You're free to spread the word! We'd love to hear where and with whom. Send us an email here.
|
Pass It On!
|
Do you know parents who would find our newsletter helpful? Zap it to them! To obtain past issues, visit the Connecting! archives.
|
Subscribe to Connecting!
|
To subscribe to our newsletter, click here. Hand in Hand will never share your address with any other organization. We publish our newsletter once every six weeks.
|
|
|
