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“Summat to do!”
The New Year brought with it a new kind of activity for Hull YFC, in the shape of a 10 week parenting course. We had five mums from our Breakfast Club “sign up” for it; eight weeks in, all five are committed to seeing it through to the end.
We meet at Rich and Emma’s house, which helps provide a homely, informal space for what is a fairly focused course, high in content and and structure and very much led from the front. We were concerned to find the right kind of course for ‘our mums’, and Emma did a good deal of research into the various ones on offer. This one, by Family Links, seemed at first to be far too prescriptive about the way it needed to be delivered and in many ways very middle class in its language and style. Having been fully prepared to translate most of it into something more informal with a much lighter touch, we have found that in fact our already knowing each other as a group of friends through the breakfast club, combined with making sure we go through the programme in ‘ordinary-speak’, has meant we haven’t had to change any of the basic content.
We were also worried that the large accompanying book that each parent gets might be too wordy and off-putting, since most of our mums had opted out of their own schooling and were extremely unconfident about anything that smacked of a “course”. Well, it just goes to show that you can’t put people in a box, and the right pitch and a little encouragement goes a long way. The mums have taken to the books with relish, and many diligently follow up what we have talked about in the week with reading through the appropriate section in the book, having a go at the practical ideas and often reading ahead to what we might be getting onto next!
It has been heartening to hear the mums speak about the tangible, positive changes in their family life as a result of putting into practice what they have learnt: much less shouting and arguing, much more cooperation and greater enjoyment of family life and relationships. But their real reason for coming in the first place had little to do with parenting for most of them, and everything to do with being a part of something and having something to do with others. At the start of the first session one of the mums remarked “to be honest you could have asked us to come to a course on anythin’, I was just excited to have summat to do with people to get out the ’ouse!”
That, for us, is the really important bit, the stuff of the Kingdom of God. It’s not actually about parenting skills, it’s about growing relationships, transforming our community by offering spaces and opportunities and encouragement for people to get together and do stuff together and support each other. Each one of the five mums speaks of their growing confidence, each one of the five shows the others care and support, and each week we see five mums holding their heads a little higher and letting their gaze travel a little further towards a horizon of possibilities. And while all that’s going on, we are becoming better parents and having a jolly good laugh.
Anna
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