Parent Coalition Newsletter for December: Our Big Why

Parent Coalition Update

Michele (Great Start Parent Liaison,
left), and Marni (Great Start
Coordinator, right) helping at the
cookie decorating table at the
Mt. Pleasant Christmas Celebration
on Friday.  So cold, but also super fun!

Hi everyone!  I hope you're all having an awesome holiday season!  I was thinking recently about the nature of the Parent Coalition's work and why it's so important, and I realized we probably don't talk enough about our big Why.  So as I was thinking about the overarching vision for myself as a Parent Liaison and how to articulate it, here is what I came up with:

• To create a fun, safe, and authentic environment where parents can learn, connect, and grow in resilience, so their kids can grow up in a more resilient home environment and reach their full potential throughout their lives.  
• To create a passionate, motivated, and self-sustaining team of parents to identify and tackle issues impacting children in our community, with a focus on the four early-childhood outcomes of the Great Start Collaborative.
• To connect policymakers with the real families their work impacts, so parents can inform the direction of policy efforts.

It's easy for those of us who are in this line of work to get focused on the day-to-day tasks, meetings, and to-dos, and forget the overarching values that give purpose to our work.  And it's even easier to forget to communicate that vision to others who are involved in this important work.  But that is the big Why of the Parent Coalition in a few simple bullet points, and we need everyone involved!  Whether you have babies or teenagers, or you're a grandparent who has suddenly found yourself back in parenting mode.  Whether your kids are considered developmentally "normal" or you have a child with special needs.  Whether you feel you have the resources to totally rock this parenting thing or you're just trying to keep your head above water.  We need you!

So please join us!  We'd love to have you be part of this important work!

Upcoming Meetings

Join us on Tuesday, December 17 for our December Parent Coalition Learning Hangout!  It's at 9 AM at the Winding Brook Conference Center in Shepherd, and we'll be hanging out with other grown-ups (which is always a plus if you're at home with little ones all the time!), talking about our current parent-led projects, and brainstorming solutions as a group to our biggest parenting challenges.  In order to help you get there, we will reimburse you for your mileage, and we also have a small  childcare stipend ($4 per child per hour) if you need to line up a sitter.  The meeting will last about an hour, and it will be followed immediately by our Great Start Collaborative board meeting.  Any Parent Leaders who want to stick around for the board meeting will earn a $30 stipend for attending too, because it is so important for the policymakers in the room to hear what is important to real families in the community!  

We normally also have an evening meeting for those who can't make it in the morning, but the December evening meeting is cancelled, because my daughter has her school Christmas concert that night.  Because after all, we're parents first, right?  So I hope you can make it to the morning meeting this month, and we'll resume the evening meetings in January. 

And if you know any friends you think would want to come to the Learning Hangout and/or the board meeting, feel free to share the event with them on Facebook!

Parent Coalition Book Club

At our November meeting, we chose which book we want to read for our quarterly Parent Coalition Book Club!  Part of being the best parents we can be is understanding how children develop and interact with the world so we can figure out how to handle all the crazy situations our kids (and parenting in general) can throw at us.  So we decided to read a parenting book and have a book club discussion every three months during our regular monthly Parent Coalition get-together.  Last month, we chose to read Parenting Without Power Struggles by Susan Stiffelman, and we'll be discussing the book at our February get-together.  So if you want to read the book too, it's pretty cheap on Amazon, or I'll also have the audiobook version at the Learning Hangout on the 17th.  If you bring your device and USB cord, I can transfer it from my computer to your device, and you can listen along!

Closing Notes

So, that's it for the December newsletter!  If you have any questions about anything, you can email me at mmonroe@giresd.net or drop us a line on Facebook!

Welcome to the Great Start Parent Coalition Monthly Newsletter!

Parent Coalition Update

Here's the Parent Coalition at our Parent Café we
held a few months ago at the Mt. Pleasant
Discovery Museum!  We're always having fun
events like this, so read the newsletter to keep
informed about the fun things we have going on!

Hi everyone!  Thanks so much for popping in to read the inaugural edition of the Great Start Parent Coalition Newsletter!  The goal with this newsletter is to keep everyone in the loop about what we're doing at the Parent Coalition, let you know about any upcoming meetings and events, and help us all grow in parenting knowledge and general awesomeness!  So read on to learn what's going on these days! :-)

Upcoming Meetings

Join us at this month's Parent Coalition Learning Workshop, which is all about self-care and how taking care of ourselves helps us be better parents!  That will be on Tuesday, November 19th, and there is a morning meeting at 9 AM and an evening meeting at 6:30 PM, so you can attend the one that best fits your schedule!  Check out the Facebook events for the morning meeting and the evening meeting here for more details, and feel free to tag or share with any friends you think would want to come!  We'll reimburse you for your mileage to get to and from the meetings, and there is also a small childcare stipend ($4 per child per hour) if you need to line someone up to watch your kiddos.  But we purposely made the evening meeting at a kid-friendly location (this time, it's the play place at the Burger King in Alma), so feel free to bring your kids along!  We'll get you a coffee or other drink too, but if you want to get food also, you'll be on your own for that.  The morning meeting is at the Winding Brook Conference Center in Shepherd, which is not as kid-friendly, so you'll probably want to line up childcare for your little kids if you want to come to the morning meeting.  Bonus:  There is a board meeting of the Great Start Collaborative directly following the morning meeting, so if you stick around for that meeting, there is a $30 honorarium for attending!  The board meeting is a great way to get plugged in to events and projects in the community that benefit kids, and it's also a great way to inform policymakers about the needs of your family and your community.  So it's a win-win!  Let me know if you have any questions, and we'll see you there! :-)

Parent Coalition Book Club

I have always, always wanted to be part of a book club, but it is so hard to make the time!  Anyone else with me on this?  So let's have a Parent Coalition Book Club, which will meet every three months during the regular Parent Coalition meetings!  Doing it every three months will give us plenty of time to actually read the book, and I'll also try to have the audio version available too to load on to your device if you'd rather go that route.  I personally love audiobooks, because you can be enjoying a book while you're driving, or washing dishes, or whatever.  Here are some books I'm considering for the book club, so check them out, and we'll vote on the book choice at the meeting on the 19th!

The Secrets of Happy Families by Bruce Feiler

In The Secrets of Happy Families, New York Times bestselling author Bruce Feiler has drawn up a blueprint for modern families — a new approach to family dynamics, inspired by cutting-edge techniques gathered from experts in the disciplines of science, business, sports, and the military.

Parenting Without Power Struggles by Susan Stiffelman

From a family therapist, parenting expert and respected advice columnist for AOL’s HuffPost Parents comes a unique approach to parenting that can help eliminate drama, meltdowns, and power struggles.

All Joy and No Fun by Jennifer Senior
In All Joy and No Fun, award-winning journalist Jennifer Senior analyzes the many ways children reshape their parents' lives, whether it's their marriages, their jobs, their habits, their hobbies, their friendships, or their internal senses of self...  Through lively and accessible storytelling, Senior follows these mothers and fathers as they wrestle with some of parenthood's deepest vexations—and luxuriate in some of its finest rewards.

Closing Notes

So, anything else you'd like to see included in the newsletter next time?  Just let me know!  You can send me an email or message me on Facebook.  Speaking of Facebook, check out and follow our page right here!  I post parenting hacks, funny tidbits, articles, and local kid-friendly events every few days!