Becoming a parent can be a little like jumping off a cliff into cold water. It can take time to come to the surface, catch your breath and regain your bearings. And then we begin to swim even if it is with some effort. Some strokes are long and sure. Some come with a great deal of effort. Along the way there are life rafts upon which to climb and rest if only for a short while. Up we climb, rest a bit, catch our breath and then dive back in.
One of these life rafts can be a parent infant group such as the Better Beginnings for Babies Group at The Grapevine Family & Community Resource Center. Within the structure of a parent/infant group, new parents find community and mutual understanding: nourishment to sustain the dive back in, supporting parents for the journey, deepening the parenting adventure. In a circle of parents, each one carries their own questions, struggles, insights and triumphs. New parents come from a myriad of backgrounds and family situations but have in common that all are parents of infants and toddlers.
Facilitated parent infant/toddler groups create space for parents to support each other, with the belief that the wisdom of the group has incredible potential. It can be a gift to take a deep breath and sequentially experience being listened to and heard. Finding common points of experience can be enormously soothing; exploring solutions, exhilarating.
And while parents are being nourished by community, their little ones are experiencing the opportunity to test out their gross and fine motor skills in a safe environment designed especially for their exploration. Imaginative capacities as well as social and language skills are also given the opportunity to develop. Encircled by the adults in the room, infants and toddlers have the opportunity to securely move out into the play space, interact, and then tumble back to the safety of their parents’ laps. This is the game of moving away from and then coming back again securely building relationship.
This life raft that is community within the parent/infant playgroup supports relationship: it is the development of relationship with ourselves as parents; it is the development of the relationship of parent and child; it is the development of relationship with community support. Parent Infant/toddler groups have the potential to buoy us as we swim with and against the currents of parenthood.
I am the facilitator of the Better Beginnings for Babies group at the Grapevine Family & Community Resource Center in Antrim. We currently meet on Wednesdays from 12:30 to 2 p.m. Come join us on the raft!
Nancy Macalaster, M.A. is a group facilitator and Infant and Parent Mental Health Specialist at The Grapevine Family & Community Resource Center.