[blparent] Taking advantage of parenting classes

[Bridgit Pollpeter]

Rebecca,

I was not referring to Hadley classes but the generic classes many
hospitals and other groups offer. I was not speaking to learning
alternative skills and techniques for non-visual parenting either; I
just think it can be beneficial to learn certain parenting methods and
information especially for new parents. To say a parenting class of any
type wouldn't be helpful or is not necessary seems a bit of a foolish
comment. As a new parent, there is often a lot of questions and not
every new parent is equipped with proper information or have a wide
support system in which to turn to. Some parenting classes can help one
prepare and feel more confident. Again, I speak about any parent,
disabled or not. I'm also addressing physical and mental development
information more so than info like changing diapers and how to feed,
though these are good things to learn as well. From my own experience of
raising Penny, and my mom's 15 years of teaching with an emphasis in
child development, I know how helpful certain resources and methods can
be, and yes, they can provide an outline to be referred to in specific
scenarios especially as a child grows into a toddler and older.

As for the Hadley parenting classes, I have no info on them so I can not
speak much to this topic. It seems many have found Hadley's classes to
be helpful, and having a "certificate" to show in case their parenting
ability is questioned, has provided some with a bit more confidence. If
I understand, the main focus of Hadley's classes are to learn how to
apply nonvisual techniques to parenting things as well as simply
learning parenting skills. Personally, I've found developing nonvisual
parenting techniques is more common sense than anything else, and in my
experience, once in a given situation, the problem-solving skills work
pretty quickly to figure things out. For me personally, I've not
required classes to learn how to parent nonvisually; I've figured things
out as I go along, and as I said, I've yet to meet an obstacle that
can't be figured out in any given moment. This doesn't mean I haven't
asked friends for advice and suggestions, but I've not been overly
concerned with figuring out how to parent nonvisually.

Again, this does not imply that Hadley classes should not be taken or
offered; like anything else, it's a personal choice, and there is
nothing wrong with taking such classes.

And no one is ever at a point in which they no longer need to learn
things. Not all information out there about parenting is helpful for
all, and some info seems to change a lot, but doing what you can to find
tools and resources that work for you is never a bad thing. Instead of
bristling at the thought of learning things, we should be more
open-minded and investigate if something has anything we can learn and
use in our lives. Knowledge is, after-all, power, grin.

Sincerely,
Bridgit Kuenning-Pollpeter
Read my blog at:
http://blogs.livewellnebraska.com/author/bpollpeter/
 
"History is not what happened; history is what was written down."
The Expected One- Kathleen McGowan

Message: 2
Date: Tue, 28 Feb 2012 18:45:28 +0000
From: "Pickrell, Rebecca M (TASC)" <REBECCA.PICKRELL at tasc.com>
To: 'Blind Parents Mailing List' <blparent at nfbnet.org>
Subject: Re: [blparent] Taking advantage of parenting classes
Message-ID: <AAE38548E198F64B8E345439B68CCC7832F8B81B at TSEAMB02>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

Can you explain how a class can prepare you? Bridget mentioned something
about how that the classes didn't prepare her or maybe I misread. In any
event, can you explain how some "basic information" helped you? And,
what value does Hadley have outside itself? I'm being serious, does
anybody outside Hadley or NFB really care? If the classes were good and
useful that's great, but I don't hear anybody outside the blindness
community say "You know, I think I'll take classes at Hadley". Why? And
yes, please explain how a class prepared you for a given senario. You
choose both.