Meg wrote about the difficulty they are having accomplishing breastfeeding
training with little ones in attendance.
Here are some thoughts and questions:
1. What's your priority--your highest goal? Figure it out and keep it in
mind every step of the way in your problem solving process. If I were
running the course, I'm guessing that my priority would be finding a way to
change the conduct of the training while meeting the needs of the
mothers/children involved.
2. Is there any really good reason that the 6 session evening training
course must actually be completed in 6 evening sessions as currently
designed?
3. Would shorter (and more) sessions keep children less tired and thus less
"disruptive" at the session and/or open up the possibility of a little one
truly being happy with a caregiver at home because it's for a shorter time?
4. Would covering half the material in the same length session (but twice
the sessions) give everyone room for the "inefficiency" that naturally c
omes with little ones in attendance? Could the mothers themselves, at the
session, take turns caring for the children, thus, giving each other more
opportunities for attending more to the material? Something like this: Talk
about topic A for 15 minutes. Carol, Sahar, and Amy will try to keep the
children engaged while Jane, Sally, and Erika do their best to listen and
participate. Talk about topic A *again* for the next 15 minutes while
Carol, Sahar, and Amy do their best to listen and participate and Jane,
Sally, and Erika try to keep the children engaged. Everybody hears (to one
degree or another) the same topic twice, everyone gets a chance to hear it
with a little greater concentration once. Everyone takes notes as best they
can and later copies are made of all notes and shared with all participants
so the likelihood of someone missing a point entirely is very low.
5. Would audiotaping or videotaping the sessions help? The tapes can then
be shared with the mothers to make sure no one missed something they really
needed to know.
6. Do one or more of the participating mothers have a home in which space
can be used more flexibly?
7. Do the meetings have to occur in the evening, would day time during the
week or weekend sometimes work so the upstairs bedroom would be available
for use, too?
8. Have you tried approaching a hotel, library, house of worship, community
center, ??? to see if they would provide a larger space for
free--communicating, of course, the purpose and importance of this
training?
9. Talking about "the problem" can focus on problems with the design of the
training, not problems with the presence of children. Having children
present is the historical, global, and biological norm: they are not the
trouble. Trying to cover lots of material at a speed and in a location that
doesn't accommodate the presence of children or the presence of extra care
providers seems to be what's causing trouble.
Hoping something here helps,
Cynthia
Cynthia Good Mojab, MS clinical psychology, IBCLC, RLC
Ammawell
Email: [log in to unmask]
Web site: http://home.attbi.com/~ammawell
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