Establishing Professional Contacts and Expanding Resources

At first read, I have to admit I was a bit nervous about this week's assignment to reach out to international early childhood professionals. My reticence quickly turned to excitement, however, as I started to explore my options. I am sort of smitten by Finland's education system; their lack of standardized testing, huge government support, community approach, and project-based learning really intrigues me.... Not to mention they have just proven that their system works as they continue to be ranked #1 in the developed world for education (www.scholastic.com, 2015). So I set out to try to connect with some Finnish folk. I sent emails via UNICEF, the Finnish National Board of Education, and Center on International Education Benchmarking. For good measure, I also an email to and Irish organization and an Egyptian one, as well. Unfortunately, most of the emails came back with failure messages of some kind. I have yet to hear back from the folks at the Finnish National Board of Education and the Center on International Education Benchmarking, so I have my fingers crossed. If I don't hear back from them over the weekend, I will try to dig deeper and find a few different Finnish early childhood organizations to explore as I really have my heart set on learning more about their flexible, connected way of approaching education. Hopefully, I will have some luck and won't have to move to the alternative assignment.

I decided to go in a very different direction when it came to selecting a website to follow for an organization that supports early childhood in some way. I have long since had an affinity for the organization Parenting by Connection, now renamed Hand in Hand Parenting (www.handinhandparenting.org). They like to fancy themselves a "Parent Rescue Squad," which really resonates with my personal and professional passions. I have used them as a resource in the past and have recently found myself falling behind on their articles and new insights. I've been really frustrated with this since their teachings have enriched my private practice and my parenting so much, so I thought I would use this as an opportunity to catch back up on all of their new information and articles. The wonderful thing about HIH is that all of their teaching are based on basic brain science. Many of their approaches are fairly counter cultural as they do not advocate classic reward and punishment, but instead focus on connection, listening, setting limits, and play. I am a parenting educator and advocate, a pediatric sleep consultant, parenting coach, lactation counselor, and a former birth and postpartum doula. When my oldest daughter was born I had incredibly high expectations of myself and motherhood. I was really devastated by how isolating it actually felt and how much loss I felt, too. I became really passionate about studying postpartum support practices throughout the world and quickly found that the US is so far behind in this area that most parents can't even really imagine what support might look like. I have built my practice up around supporting parents, which I believe is the best way to support children. HIH has an entire area of support that focuses just on how parents can deal with the frustrations of parenthood, so that they can restore their brains to healthy functioning rather than frustrated loops of irrationality (if you are a parent, you will know what I mean). This is a big part of why I want to build my connection to this organization. I'm really excited to learn more and share it will y'all!

Thanks for reading! I look forward to connecting and learning more about all of you!

-Lauren