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!