Entries For: October 2009

Foundation for Early Learning is delighted to feature a guest blog post from early learning supporter Carla Bryant. If you are interested in being featured in the Foundation's blog, please contact Joel Ballezza, Communications Manager at joel@earlylearning.org.

As a little girl I was always getting into trouble.  So much so, my first grade teacher tried to convince my parents that I needed special education services.  If it wasn’t for my parents and their commitment to my education, my school career could easily have gone in another direction.  Today, I am a PhD candidate in Special Education at the University of Washington.

My passion is education.  And that’s why I’m proud to say I’m a donor to Foundation for Early Learning. 

My reasons are simple.  Early learning is one place where you can see results.  Early learning is prevention.  Investing now in the education of young children will have payouts that we see now and down the road in years to come.
 
I am particularly invested in the Foundation because of their work with community coalitions.  The Foundation brings community members together to collectively help children prepare for school. When we work together we are able to help more kids, exponentially.  We can’t do it alone.

In order to survive this current economic environment, we need organizations that can leverage funds.  Washington State’s early learning community is made up of so many small entities operating in isolation.  The key to success is working together.  Once you put people together, the other pieces fall in place. 

I love what Foundation for Early Learning does—not just because their focus is early learning, but because their focus is early learning and community coalitions working together to make a difference.  The ability of community coalitions to leverage resources is what makes the Foundation unique.  Coalitions are the heart of early learning.  They give people a voice. 

No matter how many programs we come up with, nothing will ever be as efficient as investing in early learning.  That’s why I support Foundation for Early Learning.  I hope you will too.

Donate Today!

Foundation for Early Learning is featuring a guest blog article from our partner Kim Estes of P.E.A.C.E of Mind. If you are interested in being featured in the Foundation's blog, please contact Joel Ballezza, Communications Manager at joel@earlylearning.org.

Here They Come!

By Kim Estes

Here they come… the holidays, the relatives and the insane schedules! Now is a great time to take a moment BEFORE things get too crazy, to talk to your family about some common sense safety tips.  There will be lots of interaction with family and friends, new experiences and new places. Take time to practice “what if” scenarios with your kids. Taking time to talk safety with your kids will take some of the anxiety out of your holidays!

Safety while shopping:

• Have a designated spot (a sales counter) to meet at if you get separated.

• Have younger kids practice your name and cell phone number

• Remind kids never to leave the store, no matter what!

• Practice identifying “safe grown ups” while you are out (e.g. Safe Mom with kids)

• Older kids should always take a friend when going to the mall

• Kids need to check first with you before going anywhere or accepting gifts

• Never leave children unattended in stores, arcades, or playgrounds

Safety at parties:

• Let your child chose who they wish to show affection to. Do not force them to kiss or hug someone. Kids need to know they have power over their own bodies.

• Check in on kids during large gatherings. Have each adult take 20 minute “shifts” to do a quick walk through the house/yard and check on the kids to make sure that they are doing OK

• Kids should check first with a parent before going off with someone (eg. To play video games in a bedroom or leaving the house to go play)

• If someone is making your child uncomfortable (excessive tickling, hugging, wrestling) intervene on your child’s behalf to end the behavior. Your child needs to know that you will protect them.

Questions? Concerns? Contact us! kim@pomwa.org  We’re here to help! Follow us on Twitter for quick tips!

About the Author: 

Kim Estes is the co-founder of the non-profit organization: P.E.A.C.E of Mind (Parent Education And Child Empowerment) www.pomwa.org . Kim has worked with parents for over 12 years, educating them on various parenting topics.  Kim and her cohort in crime prevention, Sabrina Sessa, help liberate parents from fearful parenting through non fearful techniques and easy to apply parenting strategies they help empower families to be safe.

Foundation for Early Learning is excited to announce a partnership with Icosystem to use their baby name recommendation tool, Nymbler. This free service enables expectant parents to enter in one or a series of boy or girl names. The system then provides recommendations based on the names provided. You can adjust what names you prefer based on the results and can narrow your name research from there.

Try it out on the Early Learning Community

Another really helpful feature is that you can click on each name and Nymbler provides information on how popular the name is, if the name is gaining in popularity and other names with similar popularity. All this is helpful for a parent or family member who is research names for a baby or just to learn more about your name or your child's.

I tested out the service and discovered this about the name "Joel".
This is what is said.

A boy's name of Hebrew origin that is found in the Old Testament. Joel was most popular in 1985 and is currently ranked #113 among the U.S. boys' names. Meaning: Hebrew: God is willing. Bible: an Old Testament Hebrew prophet.

I found the service easy to use and actually a lot of fun. Try it out and let me know what you discover and be sure to recommend it to your friends.

 What does you name mean? Try out Nymbler on the ELC

Foundation for Early Learning is featuring a guest blog post from Board Chair Jim McCarthy and former Chair Vijay Vashee. If you are interested in being featured in the Foundation's blog, please contact Joel Ballezza, Communications Manager at joel@earlylearning.org.

We worry about kids. We worry about our children, but we also worry about those who need us. That is why we disagree with Tim Eyman’s latest initiative 1033. It is a bad idea and it will make it harder for many children and families to succeed. It will significantly reduce funding for education and critical health programs vital to our state’s youngest and most vulnerable families. Vote “no” to I-1033.

I-1033 will severely limit what Washington State can spend on children and families during a time when they need us most. Specifically, I-1033 will make it difficult for schools, public health, fire and police departments to increase budgets from year to year based on need.  During this economic recession, often cited as the worse since the Great Depression, we need to make investments and work at keeping children safe and healthy. This is important to giving our children a fair start at life.

I-1033 isn’t a new or novel idea; Colorado has proven this idea to be a failure. After passing their version of this law in 1992, Colorado’s K-12 funding plummeted, reducing Colorado to 49th in the nation for education funding. Colorado also saw the number of children without health insurance double. They repealed their law in 2005 after watching it wreck havoc on the

ir state and local budgets. According to Ed Week, Washington is already 42nd in the nation for K-12 spending. As early learning advocates we cannot stand by and watch education and critical health funding be reduced. We need to increase, not decrease investments in children and families, especially during times of economic hardship. As a community we need to provide a safety net for families, not break it apart when people need us most.

As board chair and former board chair of Foundation for Early Learning, we know that there are genuine needs in our state. We hear from our early learning community coalitions that children are slipping through the cracks. Our coalition members tell us that children are missing out on important wellness and developmental screenings, not entering kindergarten knowing the basics, and too many children are behind on the first day of school. Walla Walla has the fourth highest teen pregnancy rate in the state and the second worst low-birth weight. I-1033 would make it harder for a new mother in Walla Walla to access vital medical programs to ensure a healthy delivery and a good start at life. Families, especially new and young families, need better support.

Our partners in the Early Learning Public Library Partnership say that their libraries are filled with parents seeking information on jobs, child care, health insurance, and finding resources that support their families during this economic recession. Many libraries have seen an increase in visitors, but unfortunately, this is also a time when library budgets and staff hours are getting cut.  Let’s make it easier for families to seek out support, not harder.

Our early learning partners, including the Children’s Alliance and the League of Education Voters, have also made their positions clear—they are against this initiative. The early learning community has worked too hard for Washington’s babies, children, and families to allow I-1033 to undo the progress we have made. We don’t want to see the state lose momentum in their commitment to our youngest children.

During this time when families need us most, we need to be looking for smart and strategic ways to help children receive a fair and healthy start in life. We cannot let Tim Eyman drag our children towards substandard education and inadequate medical care.  These conditions will show up in future needs for remedial education, missed vaccinations, and increased stresses on our families and social support systems. I-1033 won’t help families, it will hurt them.

Join us in voting “no” to I-1033 by November 3.

Signed by: Jim McCarthy, Chair Foundation for Early Learning, Vijay Vashee, former Board of Directors Chair, Foundation for Early Learning

I experienced my first rejection as a mother. Several weeks ago I ‘applied’ to join an online-email mom’s group. It was recommended by several people who raved about how families share information, pass along baby items that their family has outgrown, and connect with others. This sounded great to me and I was looking forward to joining.

I found the group online. It is a neighborhood-based group in Seattle. I won’t name the group or location, but it is in a nicer neighborhood. I received a form email saying the group has tightened their security and people must now apply. It went on to state the purpose of the group: to support moms and the challenges they face, and to share information. They also want to verify that applicants live in the neighborhood or close to it. I dutifully sent my ‘letter’ to the moderator with the requisite information and then waited.

A few days later I received an email back saying my application was denied. Our home was deemed too far out of their community to be invited in. Until that moment I hadn’t realized that email has boundaries, communities, or neighborhoods. I thought that was part of the point of email to connect beyond arbitrary boundaries. I was upset and came close to ‘angry emailing’ (emailing when you are so upset you don’t care what you write). Thankfully my even tempered husband stopped me.

As I sat there steaming from the rejection I wondered if this is the new form of playground dissing, was I being rejected because of my lack of cool? It felt like I wasn’t part of the popular crowd.

I tried to figure out why I was so upset about the moderator’s email. I was angry because the ‘denial’ or ‘rejection’ went against my values and offended my sense of community. I work at Foundation for Early Learning because I see the value in connecting families. Our coalition building grants are at the heart of this, we bring diverse groups together. We want people to share and see strength in meeting families where they are socially, geographically, and celebrate their diversity. The EarlyLearningCommunity.org does the same, it makes the world a little smaller and invites and unites people in. Libraries do the same; they are open to all and pride themselves on welcoming families to share in learning together and connecting people with important information.

I emailed several friends about my rejection and to get a reality check; was I over reacting or being self-righteous to think that I should be allowed in? Two friends gave me the humor needed in this situation: “do they have bylaws?” and “In the words of Grey’s Anatomy, Seriously?” Another close friend said she was also rejected by the group; her family was deemed too far outside of the zone even though her friend who lives a few blocks away was allowed in. Collectively we all wondered if this is the new form of red-lining as those of us rejected live in much more diverse neighborhoods. Our addresses were not in the cool enough neighborhoods.

After calming down I emailed the moderator back and wrote that I understood her rationale but I didn’t understand why her group was so prescriptive in their membership, especially because the group is email based. I also shared that I thought her group was missing out on important resources, especially since that is one of their stated goals. An email back confirmed that the group valued their neighborhood bonds. The moderator’s email back was polite, she said members felt it important to stay neighborhood based and to keep the group limited to local people because it prevents people from having to drive around for play-dates and to pick-up items offered. That is understandable and not something that I wholly agree with, but it is their group and they can choose who to allow in. She was gracious in volunteering to help me start my own neighborhood email group, which I politely declined; my interest was tapping into a larger network of parents and families.

I have moved on from this experience. It forced me to confront my values and the values that I want to perpetuate as a parent. I licked my email wounds and found a more inviting and inclusive email based group to join. This group thinks my family is cool enough to join and we’re happy to play on their playground.

Foundation for Early Learning is delighted to feature a guest blog post from Early Learning Public Library Partnership member Kate Lyle, Whitman County Library. If you are interested in being featured in the Foundation's blog, please contact Joel Ballezza, Communications Manager at joel@earlylearning.org.

I used to observe new mothers in the grocery store. Many seemed so tired, so overwhelmed. That would not be me, I’d vow. Armed with a years of experience working with children, first as a babysitter, then as an education student, and finally as an elementary school teacher, I felt I had the skills necessary to soar through new parenthood unscathed, a beautifully clothed, happy baby at my side.

My eight-pound reality check arrived nine months later. And while there were parts of raising a child I was prepared for, many aspects—the complete and utter exhaustion, the loneliness and isolation of raising a child, particularly in a rural area—shocked me. I wore my pajamas for days on end; my new “boss” didn’t seem to care, and none of my pre-baby clothes fit anyway. I looked every bit as exhausted as any new mother I had ever seen. Motherhood was more difficult and demanding than I could ever have imagined.

When a friend invited me to attend storytime at the local Whitman County Library branch, I didn’t have great expectations. Still the programs had the dual lures of being free and nearby, which was enough to convince me to give them a shot. What I found at storytime wasn’t just books, songs and crafts for my daughter. I found a time when I could talk to other moms. I found a break from the sometimes-monotonous job of raising children. I might have felt isolated much of the time, but on Thursday mornings I could count on being among friends.

Two years after my first storytime experience, my daughter is now a rambunctious toddler and big sister to a new baby boy and interestingly, I am the librarian in that very same Whitman County Library branch. Ironically, the library where I first found the companionship of other parents is now the place where I give other parents the well-deserved rest and support they need.

At the library, we often highlight our storytime programs as great opportunities for children to learn new ideas and become prepared for the rigors of school and life. They are. But library programs are also times for adults, the moms, dads, daycare providers, grandmas and grandpas who dedicate their days (and nights) to helping children, to connect with each other. Any difficult journey can be helped along with a good book and a good visit.