Parents reveal their superpowers
Mar. 6—PLATTSBURGH — Parent leadership is a never-ending responsibility and much longer than the shortest month of the year designated as National Parent Leadership Month by Parents Anonymous.
"We used to have a support group model Parents Anonymous, and we still conduct support groups," Juliette Lynch, parenting educator at Family Connections Resource Center, said.
"Our Family Resource Center network is committed to encouraging parent leadership. So encouraging parents to have input in every aspect of our Family Resource Center operation, encouraging parents to develop their own leadership skills both within their families and within the larger community and encouraging them to become supporters and advocates in every aspect of their children's lives."
"Parent leadership is just a big part of what we support in Family Connections and our Family Resource Center network."
Parents are group leaders in the center's support groups.
Parents advisory committees offer input and inform the center's programming.
"We connect families to one another to help them provide one another with social supports," Lynch said.
"They help each other with things like moving, things like getting connected with resources, and getting connected with stuff, everything from dressers to whatever the need might be — snowsuits, clothes, things like that.
"In that way, parents provide leadership in the community by being supports to other parents as well. We sort of are the catalyst or facilitator to that."
National Parent Leadership Month shows appreciation for parents who work to improve the lives of their families, neighbors and communities by lending their voice to local, state and national initiatives and partnering with the staff of programs that they participate in.
"We've done something special every year for over a decade to honor parents in some way," Lynch said.
"This year, of course, having large in-person celebrations was not possible. So what we did instead was we hired a graphic artist, his name is Joe Grimshaw, to do caricatures of parents."
The Childcare Coordinating Council of the North Country wanted parents to feel empowered.
"We know that this has been a really hard time for parents," Lynch said.
"The pandemic has really taken a toll on parents because many parents are being squeezed with work responsibilities, school remote learning responsibilities, worry about quarantining and getting ill, and then also just feeling isolated. Being isolated has really taken a toll on a lot of families.
"Parents have really kind of borne a lot of the brunt of a lot of that, and are sort of, I think, the unsung heroes of the pandemic."
Lynch, of course, recognizes the sacrifices of essential workers, but points out that many parents are also essential workers.
"Who are out there on the frontline and also juggling all of this at home," she said.
"In recognition of that, we wanted to kind of give them the opportunity to talk and about what their parenting superpowers were and have them depicted as superheroes.
"We also got the kid's input, too, and found out what they really like to do as family and created these nice caricatures for them and sort of honor them and recognize them for the superheroes that they are."
All the parents who participate in center's programs were invited to a Zoom session with the artist.
"Where he could work on their portrait while they were sitting on Zoom, and he could be asking them questions about their superhero powers," Lynch said.
"Some parents chose to do it that way. Other parents preferred just sending us photos and answering questions about what they thought their parenting superpowers were, what they liked to do together as a family, and three words that describe them as a parent."
More than 20 caricatures were created of parents and their family units.
Email Robin Caudell:
Twitter:@RobinCaudell
