Julie Mitchell, Spurgeon’s Childcare, reports on the Guildford Diocesan Family Life Day in June
This year is the 10th Anniversary of the United Nations International Year of the Family. In response the Diocese of Guildford felt it appropriate to offer a training day for people interested and involved in providing support to families.
The day took place at Stoke Church, Guildford on 10th June and was open to parents, churches, voluntary and statutory agencies in the locality. Over sixty people attended and events ran very smoothly thanks to a huge amount of preparation work beforehand by the committee.
Workshops held covered the topics Living with Teenagers, Step Parenting, Young Carers, Loss and Bereavement, Grand-parenting, Faith in the Family and One Parent Families. These were run by volunteers who gave their time freely and were able to offer their own understanding and experiences of the subject matter. Practical Parenting, The Mothers Union, Spurgeons Child Care, and Surrey Parenting Education Support, all displayed very interesting stands with useful leaflets and information.
A crèche was run for parents who required childcare and a very bountiful ploughman’s lunch was included in the cost.
The day was made particularly special by the presence of Michael Quinn, founder and director of Family Caring Trust, and Fiona Taylor, Surrey Parenting Education and Support Co-ordinator.
Michael encouraged us to consider the major changes affecting family life over the last 20 years. Some aspects of change may feel slightly depressing. The growth of children’s media, the powerful ‘second family’ (peer group pressure) that has a huge influence on children’s lives and the anger that seems to be present amongst young people. However, we were also made aware of signs of hope. Respect for women and children is one of Jesus’ key teachings and also one of the positive results from the changes experienced by society in recent years. Also society is learning to embrace the diversity of its communities rather than marginalising the minority populations, again a move towards the teachings of the New Testament which in the past has been sidelined. Michael challenged faith communities to be mindful of their duty to uphold hope for the future and not to be dwelling on negative changes or to hide from change.
Fiona Taylor gave an overview of parenting education and support in Surrey which showed a very encouraging picture of the expansion of the over the past ten years. She reminded us that 250,000 children and young people live in Surrey. She was very impressed with the work that was being carried out by churches and recognised the Family Life day as a celebration of success. She recognises that the church community have a unique contribution as they have a deep understanding of their local communities, strong local networks, they are able to be flexible, are non-stigmatised and provide opportunity for long-term and on-going support to families. She also saw that churches were actively involved in doing the work and doing it very productively. She looks ahead to much more joint working between the statutory and voluntary agencies with the churches.
A variety of issues were raised in the workshops. Churches of all denominations contribute to support family life in a variety of ways. In addition to the pastoral care and spiritual development that is a natural part of the church’s ministry many churches have Pre-schools, Toddler Groups, Youth Clubs, School Holiday Clubs and parenting courses as an integral part of a church life and these serve the local community whether church-goers or not. However, whilst the church claims to uphold family values how are we responding to a society where the definition of family encompasses a wide variety of forms? In a country where so many children belong to stepfamilies how welcome does the church make these children feel and are the members fully aware of the issues and dilemmas that face one-parent families or those remarrying and thus creating a blended family. These are some of the challenges presented to those attending this first training event held by the Guildford Diocese for Parenting and Family Support Work.
The day was enjoyable, informative and challenging. If you missed it this year then look out for future events and let’s hope that the team that organised this day will reflect that it was worth all the effort put into organising it and will repeat this as an annual event.
Michael offered four points for happy parenting which were based on the work of Dr Ron Taffel and Dr John Gottman. I found these so useful I would like to share them with you:
Gentle Love
Keep connecting with your child. Know them, what they do and listen. One useful tip was to watch TV with your children (whatever their age). They will view it differently knowing you are present.
Firm Love
Able to say “no” and allow them to experience the consequences.
Offer Guidance and Feedback
They need to feel cared for and know you are interested even if it appears they are ignoring your values. Parents expressing the values that are important to them will have a long term effect even if children decide not to adopt them.
Nurture Yourself
Parents need to learn to accept the limitations of their role and to be mindful of their own needs. Michael illustrated this well by reminding us that in an air crash situation parents are advised to put on their oxygen mask before helping their children with theirs. In other words, if the parent isn’t getting oxygen they can’t help their child and they may both perish.
© 2005 Newsline 2004