Parents as Teachers

For this Money Saving Monday I thought I would give a little shout out to a wonderful program I just recently got myself involved in. I have never heard of the program until I came to Idaho, but from what I understand they are all across the country. The program is called "Parents as Teachers" and they have a whole website full of information about them and what they are all about and where you can find a program close to you and they even have great opportunities to work with them as well in a career sense (who knows, maybe this is something I will do when my kiddos get older).

I was very close to doing my internship with them at the end of my schooling, and there are many times I wish I still would have because I know it would have been a great experience, but with being pregnant and desperate with my situation-I just jumped for the first internship I could get without having to totally exhaust myself being huge and preggo. Long story short- I think this is a great program and I think anyone and everyone could greatly benefit from it.

The basic idea behind it is the most important teachers, the most influential teachers any and all children will have are their own parents, so this program has been created and designed to help parents feel that much more capable in fulfilling this roll and helping their child(ren) in all the best possible ways. If you sign up for the program then they will send you a Parent as Teachers (PAT) educator to come to your home once a month to see how your child is progressing, help keep a lookout if it seems like there could be any developmental delays, give you some current up to date info about where your child should be at and different activities that you could do with your child to help them progress and develop the best at their current level. They also will do some kind of activity with you and/or the child to also give you some ideas about how to help your child. And to top it all off, it is also really nice to just have another person to talk to about your concerns and questions about your child in helping ease any concerns or get suggestions to feel more confident as a parent.

They are there to help the children and the parents up until they are 5 years old- once a month for 5 years- that's alot of great personal support in the role as a parent! I signed up shortly after my little girl was born, but didn't actually get my first PAT educator visit until she was bout 3 months old, and we are getting another visit tomorrow (yeah!). So far it has been going great. Our educator is very friendly and sweet, and it hasn't been weird or awkward at all so far and it really has been such a nice comfort in being able to mention random things that I might be worried about. Ya, i know I could just as easy look online or look through books about my different concerns, which I do plenty of as well- but it is such a nice different feel to be able to mention and discuss things with someone on a personal basis. It is also nice that the different things they share are current and up to date about what is best for children at their different levels. They also do developmental screening test every couple of months to help you see if there are any delays, because the early you can catch them, the better they can be helped.

Anyway, long story short, if you have any children under the age of 5, you should check them out HERE, or you can click on the "Parents and Teachers link on the right hand side of my blog. The first three years of a child's life are so crucial because by ,3 80% of their brains are developed- that's a lot of brain to be almost done, I don't know about you but I want to help make sure my kiddos brains are well done! (not that you still can't be good parents without a program like this, but every little bit of extra help, really can help!).
And going back to the idea of this being a lovely money saving Monday, is this program is totally free- now can it get any better than that? Prob not by much!

On a completely different side note I also wanted to make a mention out for my lovely home state. There is currently a huge fire going on like crazy right now, the Wallow fire- heard of it? Well in case you haven't, there is more details HERE, or you can "like" Apache County Emergency Management on facebook, and they have current updates about the fire and everything going on. It hasn't been burning for very many days it has already jumped to over 230,000 acres of forest that has caught fire. Even though my hometown is still a while away from the fire, if they aren't able to get any kind of containment soon they could be in danger as well. Several towns have already been evacuated for their safety (including the beautiful resort area that we went to for our honeymoon), these poor people down there could be loosing their homes and are losing the beautiful forests. I know there really isn't a lot we can do to help- but you can never underestimate the power of prayer- and they all need yours and my prayers that this thing can be contained and put out and even better that they can get some lovely rain! And prayers are always free :)

Anyway, hope you have a lovely Monday, until next time!...