More Hand In Hand Parenting Goodies!

Ooh! I’m super excited to share the results of my foraging on the Hand in Hand Parenting website. Truly, I am a big geek about it. These tools have transformed my life and my practice and introduced me to a way of parenting that finally aligned with my values and my intuition. Not that it is always intuitive, sometimes I have to go entirely against my instinct to scream and yell and act like a toddler, myself. Parenting can be so frustrating!

Anyway, today I was challenged to follow exterior links on the site, but HIH is a pretty self-contained. So I decided to explore some parts of the site that were in line with issues of equity and barriers to equity. I was really excited to find some links to HIH Services that I was unaware of.

First off, HIH has a scholarship program. A lot of the articles and information on the site are free, but the HIH booklets, classes, consultations, retreats, and webcasts are not free. The program is need based and gives 100%, 75%, 50%, or 25% discounts depending on need. These discounts apply to all HIH services. This is an incredible resource that has been made available to many more people through this program.

I also decided to get to know the “Blog and Community” link on the website. This section of the site has links to a blog, which highlights parents and instructors stories about using the HIH tools and teaches amazing lessons about how to reframe parenting experiences. It also has a link to sign up for the Discussion Board. On the Discussion Board parents can share their story, ask questions, request support, and get responses from other parents about their ideas, as well as from certified HIH instructors and consultants. Perhaps my favorite, though, is the Find a Listening Partner link. Listening partnerships are a HIH tool meant to help parents stay sane! The idea is that parents, just like little ones, have a brain chemistry that needs connection and a feeling of being heard in order to maintain equilibrium. During listening partnerships, two parents (not typically in the same family!) get together and take turns either listening or actively talking about their parenting woes. The person listening holds the intention that the person talking is fully capable of solving their own problems, doesn’t interrupt or give advice, is affirming and kind, speaks very little, and never brings up what is said in the listening partnership. A timer is set and the first person talks for a set amount of time and then the parents switch roles. The idea is that parents get to offload their frustrations, release frustrations and at the same time release the cortisol that is clogging up their ability to think well. I swear by listening partnerships. They have saved my children emotional pain, myself emotional pain, and, on many occasions, save my marriage, too. This link helps you connect with someone else looking for a listener partner. It’s a wonderful tool!

The newsletter had only one link on it. It was one to learn more about membership to HIH. The membership option allows you to access the paid areas of the site for a small monthly fee.

This organization always enlightens me and helps me feel really connected to the heart of what early childhood work is about. It’s about the children. It allows me to further understand the brain science and basic emotional functioning of children, and give concrete tools that help support me, my clients, and my family to work as a team and grow closer through hard times. I think these tools are distinctly applicable to issues of equity in that a basic understanding of basic human emotions and the way that every child’s brain works can only lend to seeing each and every child for who they are. Additionally, HIH has made an effort to make their information and tools available to those who’s access would otherwise be blocked by issues of affordability.

Thanks for reading!

Here is the link to the site again: http://www.handinhandparenting.org/

-Lauren