“Ripple Effects” from a Parent Listening Group
I am a teacher and director in a small preschool. About five years ago I offered a “Parent Listening Group” for parents from my school. Five parents joined. We met during the school day, so they didn’t have to find additional childcare. We took turns listening to each other, and I gave theory about parents’ oppression and the value of having a delighted listener who has confidence in us as parents. We met for eight weeks. and had turns in front of the group and did mini-sessions. At the end, the parents wanted to continue meeting, so we met over the summer.
A few months ago I ran into [encountered] one of the moms from that group. She told me that they were still meeting once a month and that it had been great ongoing support for them. She and I met about a month after that, and she asked if together we could run a similar group in the wider community, to reach more parents. We made plans to start that in the fall. Then when our state issued a stay-at-home order due to COVID-19, I reached out to her to see how she was doing. She said that the group had started meeting via Zoom. I had no idea when I started the group that it would put RC tools into the hands of these parents for so long a time!
My school has been shut down physically during the stay-at-home order, and the other teachers and I have been reaching out to families and staying connected to our students online. I decided this was a good time to offer another Parent Listening Group, and seven parents have been participating. We are meeting via Zoom.
Initially we met twice a week, once in the evening and once in the afternoon. Now we are meeting only in the evening due to other commitments. We are doing the same things as the group did five years ago, but this time everyone is discharging immediately and there is no pretense that parenting isn’t a hard job! Parenting in these times has made parents’ oppression very obvious.
Last week I got a little discouraged and thought that maybe we should stop meeting because attendance was dropping. I wondered if they needed to “learn” more theory and were tired of “just listening to each other.” So I asked for their feedback. They all said they wanted to continue. They told me that because of the parenting conditions at this time (no childcare, parents working from home, and so on), it was sometimes hard for them to attend the meeting.
At the end of the meeting on Monday, I asked what they liked about the group. One mom said she had started another Zoom call for single moms and was using the format of “taking turns” that she’d learned from our group. She said it was making a huge difference for her and those other moms. I had no idea she was passing the ideas on to others.
I have learned from these two experiences how powerful listening is, that many parents haven’t learned about it in other places, and that sharing RC tools has ripple effects I don’t always know about.
Greensboro, North Carolina, USA
Reprinted from the RC e-mail discussion list for leaders of parents
(Present Time 201, October 2020)