Parent Coalition Update
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| 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!
