Secrets Versus Surprises

Have you ever thought about the difference in definition between a "surprise" and a "secret"? I never gave it any thought until we had a speaker from the Jacob Wetterling Foundation speak at our ECFE class about how to keep our children safe.

A surprise is something we keep secret for a short time, but it is something good and something we will eventually tell.  It's inclusive and meant to make someone feel good. A secret is something you never intend to tell someone, whether because you're ashamed, don't have anyone you can trust or were told you couldn't tell. It can be used to isolate, manipulate or shame. 

Think about these two scenarios. 

The kids pick out a present for their dad's birthday and their mom tells them they have to keep it a surprise. They are so proud of what they picked out for him and excitedly wrap it. 

Your child loves going over his classmate's house because there's everything there he doesn't have at home or isn't allowed to have - all the cool toys, junk food for snacks and as much TV as they want to watch.  His friend's older brother bosses the younger kids around and acts in a way that makes your child uncomfortable.  The brother told your child that if he tells on him, he won't be allowed to come over anymore.    

The first scenario is positive and the children feel happy, excited and proud of themselves. In the other scenario the child feels guilty and icky. 

This is the difference between the two words that the Jacob Wetterling Foundation wanted us parents to understand and make sure our children understood too. If kids learn that it's not right for someone to ask them to keep a secret and that they can trust their parents to share anything, they are less vulnerable to anyone who doesn't have their best interests in mind, whether that's a friend who wants them to do something they shouldn't do or an adult who wants to harm them.

Since that ECFE class, I have been intentional about the vocabulary I use with my children.  I never ask them to keep a secret.  I ask them to help me keep a surprise and make it clear that we will eventually tell the person. 

A friend of Chris' had a teachable moment about secrets. Because the parents leave so early for work, they had hired a nanny to come over for a few hours in the morning to get their elementary-aged children up, fed and on the bus to school. One morning the nanny lost track of time and the kids missed their bus.  The nanny had also let them play on the iPad, which is against the rules in their household in the morning and probably contributed to them not paying attention to the time.  These two instances wouldn't have upset Chris' friend so much.  We all lose track of time and maybe the kids were behaving so well that the nanny thought it would be okay to reward with them with a bit of pre-school day screen time. What upset her so much and ultimately led her to fire the nanny was that the nanny asked the kids to not tell their parents that they had missed the bus and that they had been allowed to play on the iPad. She had asked them to keep a secret from their parents. (It also didn't help the nanny's case that when the parents tried to talk to her about why they were upset, the nanny did not handle the conversation professionally.) Secrets are a no-no in their family. 

Because the secret was not about harm done to the children, it may seem like a relatively minor secret. However, kids should never be taught to keep secrets from the people who love them most. After Chris' friend fired the nanny, she and her husband sat down with the kids and talked about what had happened and why they don't keep secrets in their family. In my opinion, the inconvenience of being without morning childcare is worth it to reinforce the importance of children feeling comfortable with always telling their parents the truth.

Saying Goodbye to ECFE

We attended what was likely our family's last night of Minnesota's statewide program, Early Childhood and Family Eduction (ECFE), an education program for families with children from birth to age five.  We have participated since Oliver was four weeks old, at which point I could do nothing more than sit quietly while we talked about choosing a kindergarten and mentally filed away notes for a stage in my life that seemed so far away.  And now I've arrived. 

I've been doing this for nearly six years.  Semester after semester, I've attended without hiatus.  I started in a birth-to-five class at Monroe down the street from our house, then moved to a baby class at another site, Randolph Heights, but when that closed at the end of the semester, I chose yet another site, Rondo, the following fall. With no evening age-specific classes at Rondo for Oliver's age group in the spring, I decided to go back to Monroe and attend an evening birth-to-five class.  I joined a birth-to-three daytime class in the fall, but when I got a new job, I transferred back into my old Monday night evening class. And that's where we stayed.

Every Monday night for almost four years, in rain or snow, sunshine or darkness, depending upon the season, we gulped down dinner and headed down the street to the school where the teachers greeted my children with enthusiastic hellos.  I've carried my kids in the Ergo, pushed them in a stroller, let them ride their tricycles and even pulled them in a sled one snowy evening. For almost four years we've been with this class, with these teachers and with many of the same families.  They've watched us add children to our family and then watched those children grow up.  One teacher has known Oliver since he was four weeks old. 

When we started ECFE, our street had only one other baby and few people at our site lived in the immediate neighborhood.  As the neighborhood goes through transition, it's filling up with children, including two due late this summer.  Half our class is now within walking distance of the school.  I feel like it is time to make room for another family starting their journey.  I'm sad to say goodbye, but I know ECFE has served its purpose.  I leave a better parent and better connected to my community. I'm thankful for the learning environment the program provided for my children and for the friends I have made.  My only regret is that Kiera and Matteo experienced only a couple of months of a program they were blossoming in. 

I'll Miss My ECFE Classmates

Everyone tells you as a parent that "it goes by quickly."  So, too, does the ECFE year, where we lamented about, well, how our kids are growing up so quickly.  It's too easy to get caught up in whatever the challenge of the week is with your kids and not see how much they've grown.  But oh my gosh, they have and they've achieved some big milestones.  Oliver tackled potty-training and successfully dropped a nap. Soren started the year by crawling and finished by being able to walk with us all the way to school. He experienced various levels of separation anxiety, but during the past few weeks, he'd let me leave without so much as a quiver of the lip and his teachers would report afterward about what a blast he had.   While the kids still don't always treat each other with "kind and consideration" like our house rules call for, I had forgotten, until a classmate reminded me, that at the beginning of the year, I was worried about how vulnerable I felt my once-tiny Soren was in comparison to Oliver who would push him over to get attention. I was at wit's end with how to deal with the situation and spent half a class discussing it.  And like so much else, the problem fell into the category of "this too shall pass."

Now I face an entire summer  with no weekly check-ins.  No opportunity to bounce ideas or frustrations off a group of empathetic ears.  It's difficult to leave a group when I look around the room and realize that I learned something from every single parent sitting at the table.  Whether it was telling a story about their own joys or challenges or brainstorming ideas or providing tips, I am a better parent because of every single one of them. 

One parent commented on the night of our last class how parenting is such a personal journey, yet the experience is so common and mundane.  That's all the more reason 13 families come together every Monday night.  Parenting is a more enjoyable and enlightening journey when taken together.     

ECFE in Minnesota

The final Early Childhood and Family Education (ECFE) class of the school year was Monday night and every seat in the classroom was taken. This was despite the record heat wave and lack of air-conditioning in the building. Like me, no one wanted to miss the last class, even if it meant flushed faces, matted hair and sticky legs against vinyl-upholstered seats.

As I looked around the room at my fellow parents, I realized that I'd learned something from every single one of them, even those I didn't know well at all because their children were older and in a different classroom, or simply because I'd joined the class mid-year. They had either given me parenting advice at one point or another over the months, or had told a story about their own parenting joys and challenges that will stick with me long after our children graduate high school. Only as a long summer loomed in front of me did I realize what a resource I had had every Monday night when I could ask a handful of teachers with backgrounds in child development and a classroom full of fellow parents what to do about random issues, such as tantrums or sleep disturbances.

The Early Childhood Family Education (ECFE) program was created by the Minnesota legislature and is available to all Minnesota families with children between the ages of birth to kindergarten entrance. The program is based on the idea that the family provides a child’s first and most significant learning environment and parents are a child’s first and most important teachers. Thus, the purpose is to provide parenting education to support children's learning and development.

Since the program is offered through Minnesota public schools, families have access to local programs throughout the state, and program fees, which are based on family income, are a bargain even if you pay the highest rate. But what makes Minnesota's program so unique is that accessibility and affordability have created a program that is valued across classes, family structure and national origin. I'm sure I have friends who are parents in other parts of the country who would think a parenting class is something you take because you're mandated to do so by the courts. That stigma doesn't exist here. In fact, in my district, one of the most diverse in the state, there aren't enough classes to meet demand.

I learned about ECFE when I was pregnant with Oliver and started our first class when he was only four weeks old. He didn't do much more than nurse or sleep through class during those first few months. In the spring and following fall we took classes specifically for babies his age, which meant that the babies were all around the same age and developmental abilities and most of us parents were newbies and as clueless as the next. Every milestone was celebrated. Oh my gosh, Even can sit up! Look at Leo crawl! Did Abigail grow a head of hair since just last week?

Our class this last semester was a birth-5 class and included a lot of sibling groups with an age group spanning from babies as young as six months to kids old enough to be entering kindergarten in the fall. The kids were divided into two classrooms by age, so Oliver got to do activities geared towards his developmental abiltities and interests, while the older kids got to do their big kid things in the other classroom. We'd spend the first half an hour playing with the toys and doing the activities the teachers had set up encourage the different development areas, like gross motor, fine motor, literacy, etc.

The big change for both of us this semester was that this was a "separating" class. After a half and hour of parent-child interaction, we left the kids with their teachers and headed for the parent education room, where we had an hour to discuss that week's topic without the interruption of children. With Chris away so much, it was sometimes the only hour in the week I had adults-only time.

Oliver made huge strides with his separation anxiety the past couple of months. Not only was he becoming even more comfortable being left with caregivers, he slowly started letting me leave his sight without melting down. I saw a similar pattern of improvement at ECFE. He was fine the first class, but started crying as we approached the school building for our second class, and his teachers finally had to call me back to his classroom with ten minutes to go. During the third class, I only made it ten minutes into the parent discuss before having to go back to Oliver. But since then, despite some emotional highs and lows, (a fall down a slide sent him into a crying jag, or bad nap that day left him exhausted and easily to cry by the time our 6:00 p.m. class started) his teachers said he was doing great. I knew things were looking up when Chris took Oliver for a walk on a Sunday afternoon and Oliver lead him right to the ECFE entrance (the school happens to be down the street from our house) and then cried when he couldn't get in!

I hope to get us into a morning birth-5 class in the fall so I can take the same class with Oliver and his new sibling. Maybe by this time next year, I'll be the one answering the questions of parents with younger children and saying, "I understand, I've been there."