The Parenting Class

We recently migrated to Canada and are still just getting settled. Having come in the fall season, winter was more than eager to welcome and 'treat' us. This year's winter broke a 50+ year record for the maximum weather recorded during the holiday season!! This winter, being the very first for us in this extreme temperature, well, we had to figure out ways to engage ourselves and get accustomed (my husband of course had no choice other than travelling to work, leaving my daughter and myself as the main subjects in this post).

Initially, we explored the Toronto Public Library(TPL). Having being located at multiple easily accessible places, with the facility to use the library services anywhere, or online, with lots of space to bring and use your laptop (free wi-fi) the TPLs are a much sought after place, after coffee shops, for people who need  space apart from home to work. The TPLs conduct several programmes for kids particularly. In fact, the staff get excited, quite literally, when we inquire about kid-specific events. There was a family-time event that happened for 30 mins every Wednesday, for a few weeks, in the library nearby our residence. My daughter and I attended those sessions where baby songs would be sung, stories were shared and a lot of clapping and jumping used to happen, after which we would grab a few picture books, and come home. She was definitely enjoying the new faces and live sessions, after spending almost two months with very few toys or books or people around her. As this was only scheduled once a week, my daughter was getting bored on other days. So I was still on the look out for other ways to engage her. 

That was when one friend mentioned these "parenting classes" to me one day over phone, where a parent or a baby-sitter can just bring their child who aren't school aged yet, and aren't attending any day care to mingle with other children. This place is again a drop-in place, from 9 AM to 1 PM, Monday to Friday, sponsored and run by the government, in various localities. The center close to our residence is located within a school, where ALL play things are found in one room. Kids have a building blocks or solve-a-puzzle area, a big carpet where children sit during the story-time or where children can grab a book to read, an infant area with bigger and colourful blocks and even a small teeny tiny bed, a painting area where the kids can show off their various bright strokes, a sand area with the play-with-sand equipments, a big box like bucket with water for kids who like to play with water (the water box is filled with different toys each day for variety, one day the kids bathe the dolls, the other day ducks swim around, another day kids fish out alphabets!). Other than these, kids can play in the gymnasium as per schedule, the staff bake muffins on some days, prepare home made play dough for the kids, give them snacks everyday...! This place boosted my daughter's spirits up by a few notches. She started waking up every morning saying "school day, yaayyy!!"

The staff at the center is a beautiful person, who is as lively as the kids. She attends to all, the kids, the caregivers and the parents with the same smile and energy, throughout the session, everyday! Despite the noise and number of people in the room, whenever two kids grab the same toy and fight over it, she'd summon herself and sort things, she'll teach them politely to ask for something but not grab it, for how many ever times she has to repeat it! She'll encourage the kids when they do something on their own and move on. She'll be conscious and alert at all times and do things to avoid mess and mishaps, like if a child playing at the water table is spilling water out of the box, she'll instruct a parent or caregiver standing nearby to clear it immediately and explain to the child why the water should stay in the box. If a child playing with the sand brings a mug of sand out, she'll ask for it to be cleaned immediately so that the snacks table or other tables don't become messy. All the while, whenever there is a new family joining the group, she'll find time to get to know them better. 

As this was mighty impressive for all of us, we planned to make this a routine for my daughter, so that school would become easy later on... 

Everyday when entering the school premises I used to wonder, why name these sessions as a "Parenting" class when the focus was for kids. But only after a few visits I understood that the actual focus were Parents!! These sessions create various live situations where the staff gets to observe how we handle our kids. Kids do get upset easily, if not our kid, some kid everyday, for one reason or the other.. The staff at these centres are professionals who teach with live examples, for the kids, as well as parents, well mainly for parents! When casually talking, a parent said "he's always interested to colour or create things from waste materials", the staff immediately asked "so then, maybe if he's upset for something, have you tried giving him a paper and pencil to soothe him out?". There was another instance where a mother was feeding her son, but he was refusing to eat and wanted to play. The staff asked the mother, "is he refusing to eat? why? does he want to play?" The son used this distraction of his mother to get up and run away from the table, at which the mother forced him to sit. The staff immediately said "no, we don't force our children to eat. Don't force him." And  then looking at the box she said, "Isn't this too much food for your son? This could be my lunch, not so much for a 3 year old".. 

These are live instances where guidance are given out for parents, without charge, while engaging your kids, for a healthy nurturing of the young minds, or the future generation. As parents, we can easily get carried away with our way of parenting. Particularly, when there's no external checkpoint like our immediate family, who would observe and comment on how correct we are when it comes to parenting. There might not be a hard and fast rule of parenting. Each kid has their own personality which would require a unique way to handle circumstances. We used to have our paatis- thathas and other elders for such guidance in our traditional system of family. With multiple parenting angles and views to any issue, the child will quickly learn right and wrong, do's and dont's, and the parents were immediately corrected when they were 'living' bad or wrong examples. When trying to establish roots at a place away from home, the fact that this society at Toronto is providing a nutrition rich resource through such centres and staff to create a healthy state of mind for the nex-gen is making me feel a ripple effect of good vibes!