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on May 23 2013 - 06:00 AM
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Our PAT educator Dana with Niko.
Tonight is our first meeting with Dana, our Parents as Teachers instructor.
We have been on the waiting list since the day Niko was born. We moved to the North Kansas City School District about three months ago and we are finally getting an instructor. Niko will be 18 months old on Tuesday.
I am both excited and a bit scared… what if he doesn’t measure up? What if he is behind other children in his age group?
I have written before how I don’t really have a lot of friends with kids so I don’t know if he is on track or not. I think he is… maybe.
I wouldn’t be surprised if she told me he was behind in his language skills. I have read a lot of articles about the fact that bilingual kids are usually behind in language skills for the first two years.
I think he says a lot of words… but I’m new at this. 15-20 words seems a lot to me for someone who was in my belly 18 months ago. Most of the words he says to me are in English, but a few are in Spanish. He seems to be able to understand both English and Spanish when we speak to him.
My nightmare would be that he is behind in all categories and that we fail as parents for not being able to see this. I don’t think this will happen, but I would be lying if I didn’t admit losing sleep over it.
I have seen many postings about Parents as Teachers, but don’t know anyone who has used the program myself. I spoke with the program administrator for the North Kansas City School District and she seemed very nice and informative.
I know there are a lot of fans of the program on this site… am I worrying over nothing?
Anyone have any great stories out there about Parents as Teacher…. or horror stories?
PAT will typically help you and give you info about what to do with your child in general. I had one mom I worked with say how much she missed her PAT parent educator because she always came over and told her what a great job she was doing as a mom. Nothing to be nervous about at all.Be sure to have your son's bedroom cleaned and well organized, dusted, vac'd, and it would be a good idea to find out what color the P.A.T. prefers and paint it that color before they arrive. OHMy comment was about M.I.L. not P.A.T. You'll be fine, so will son, P.A. T. doesn't judge!! Honest!!! lolIt's funny you say that gematree - I clean my house for a whole week when I hear ANY family member is coming over! My mom has a knack for checking to make sure the vegetable/fruit drawer is tidy.Oh, I took advantage of the Parents as Teachers program and it was so valuable. Nothing but good experiences here, and it came highly recommended to me. One thing our PAT parent educator will tell you is they are not there to judge you or critique your home. They'll provide games and enrichment activities and evaluate your son's growth. PAT spotted two issues for us that were so helpful. My daughter was a little behind on learning to walk, and PAT was ready to hook us up with resources to help, but then she stood up and started walking the minute that PAT meeting was over. And they helped us learn my daughter has a slight hearing problem, so we were able to get that addressed before school started.I loved out PAT coordinator in IL. She 1st came to see ds4 when he was 12 weeks old. She then came every month. Ds lit up when he saw the things she always had in her basket. It always gave me good ideas of things I could do w/him. She kept us on track & reassured me that I was doing a good job as his mom. There were also PAT programs that were just for moms. Those were fun to attend. You guys will be fine!we joined the NKC PAT this past fall and i LOVE them. Our instructor is so nice--I completely felt at ease with her the first time she came into our house. have fun!We loved P.A.T. Our educator was the one who detected our son's eye issue. He's 15 now and has worn glasses since he was 2. Who knows how long it would have taken us to figure it out if she hadn't prompted us to get him checked!Are you kidding? They don't care what your house looks like. They plop down on the floor with you (whtatever room you want) and you all play. Mine detected my sons delay and helped us get him therapy and now resources through the school district. I am an eclectic decorator so I have to dust daily, she always comments about how clean our house is so she MUST have seen some strange things. DONT EVEN THINK ABOUT YOUR HOUSE! She's there to see your son. And teach you how to interact with him, they don't judge.Boy, my PAT educator was the greatest! She didn't care anything about what my house looked like (thank goodness!) and she had such great ideas. She also encouraged me to go to the activities they had with the other parents, which always made me nervous (I am so shy.) One Christmas, when I had zilch for money or gifts and absolutely no Christmas spirit whatsoever, she found some resource and the kids had Christmas. She was awesome!P.A.T is a fabulous organization. Great for kids and families and for our communities. And they're in danger of having their budgets slashed. Once that happens, they may never get the money back. Call and write state reps to help keep them afloat -- our kids need P.A.T.!
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