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| Early Childhood in Northfield turns 25 |
By: SUZANNE ROOK, Managing Editor
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Posted: Friday, October 30, 2009 10:59 pm
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When it’s time to get dressed and ready for the day, Frances Boehning can count on her 3 1/2-year-old asking for more time to play or read.
But not on what she calls “school days.” That’s when Erik pulls on his clothes and shoes so quickly that’s he’s in the car and buckling his seat belt while his mom hurries out the door behind him.
The toddler, like his older brother before him, is a huge fan of his “school,” classes the Boehnings take through Early Childhood Family Education, a part of Northfield Schools’ Community Services Division. But the pupil in the family is really Frances.
Celebrating its 25th year, ECFE began with a small grant. For years it operated as the Family Education Center out of Longfellow School until moving to the Northfield Community Resource Center, offering classes in which parents and children birth to kindergarten can explore, learn and grow.
Connie Ryberg, who began the ECFE program in 1984, said she still runs into former students and their parents who take time to remind her how much fun they had in their classes and how much they learned.
The most important aspect of the program, says Ryberg, is the support that it offers parents of young children, letting them know that what they’ve experienced isn’t unusual, giving them parenting tips and time to share parenting experiences with others in the same boat.
“They need support. They need to decide what’s right for their family,” she said, adding that ideas shared are often food for thought, not hard and fast rules on parenting.
Solutions
It’s often said that there are no tests to pass before becoming a parent, that parenting is on-the-job training.
Northfield’s ECFE hasn’t changed that, say its supporters, though it has made parents of young children feel less like islands floating in an ocean of dirty diapers and temper tantrums.
Frances Boehning says that parents she has met through the classes have not only helped her solve parenting dilemmas, but become some of her best friends.
“It’s really … fun,” she said. “It’s a safe environment to come meet people with other children.”
Classes are divided into sections: free play where parent and child explore classroom activities, group time and parent class/discussion. It’s then that the parent and children split. In classes with children under 2, parents shift to another section of the room. With older children, they remain in the classroom while parents move down the hall. That separation was an important adjustment for Erik, who will go to kindergarten in a year and a half, said Boehning.
“He needs to be comfortable,” she said, “and know that Mom will come back.”
Parent class topics — which include everything from toilet learning to socialization and from sleep routines to helping parents work as a team — come from staff and parent suggestions.
The tools
Early Childhood Family Education is a statewide program unique to Minnesota. Started in the early 1970s, Minnesota school districts with community services divisions can offer early childhood family education to “provide parenting education to support children’s learning and development.” Funding is provided by local districts and the state. In 2005, 343 of the state’s 519 school districts offered early childhood family ed.
Research by the Harvard Graduate School of Education shows that comprehensive programs for parents of young children “are likely to be the most effective strategy to promote positive child outcomes.” Those include healthy parent/child relationships and greater success in school.
In 1995, ECFE began a program at Greenvale Place apartments for Spanish-speaking parents using a translator. Two years later, the classes, now known as Family School, included English lessons for parents. Numbers in that program continued to jump as the area’s Latino population has risen, said ECFE lead teacher Mary Loven.
The program, with more than 30 different classes, includes home visits for parents needing extra support and evening sessions called Fatherhood Fun.
Last year, 423 children participated in ECFE programs.
Brian Hutton has been an ECFE regular for nine years, since his oldest son, Henry, was an infant.
As a stay-at-home dad, Hutton says, it’s not easy to break into moms’ groups. But at ECFE, he said with a smile, he was considered “just a parent.” Over the years, Hutton said ECFE classes have been a time to hang out with his kids — Henry, Heidi, now a first-grader, and 4-year-old twins Garrett and Grant — as well as an opportunity to learn about other parenting styles and perspectives and incorporate them into his parenting bag of tricks. All, he said, which helped him become a better parent.
ECFE, says teacher Julia Daly, who has spent about 20 years in early childhood education, isn’t child care. But by aiding parents, she said, she’s reaching children. Often she says, as a parent leaves class, they tell her how much their child is learning and changing due to the sessions.
“We’re helping the parents. Parents are the primary teachers,” says Daly, who does a quick rewind. “We’re not so much helping them, but giving them the tools, things that they want and need. But to be able to do that, it’s very rewarding.”
Celebrate 25 years of Early Childhood Family Education at “Fall into Literacy” on Thursday, Nov. 5 from 6:15 to 7:45 p.m at the NCRC, 1651 Jefferson Parkway. The event is for families with children birth though kindergarten.
Events include a pretend cow that can be milked, hands-on art projects, an apple tasting and a guest storyteller. Children can make their own snacks and there will be cake for all. Every child receives a free book.
For more information on ECFE, call 664-3649 or visit www.nfld.k12.mn.us.
— Suzanne Rook is the managing editor and covers education. She can be reached at srook@northfieldnews.com or 645-1113. |
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ECFE is one of the best things the Northfield Public Schools offers to families. Long-overdue public thanks and recognition are due to Connie Bragonier-Ryberg, who launched this program and shepherded it through its early days. She, more than any other individual, deserves a ton of credit and the community's gratitude.
I couldn't agree more, with the above comment; keep up the good work, ECFE!