Pandemic parenting help in SC…
Parenting during a global pandemic has become much harder and it is creating additional stress in families, but a global grassroots movement with Canadian roots wants to help parents to get the support they need.
Great Parenting Simplified (GPS) is a non-profit co-operative organization with its head office in Edmonton. It has supported over 40,000 parents across 101 countries during the past 10 years.
GPS founder and CEO Jacqueline Green, who grew up in Swift Current, said it was already evident soon after the start of the pandemic that parents are struggling. For that reason, GPS set up the Pandemic Parenting Movement with a goal to raise $75,000 through a crowdfunding campaign that will support the training of more certified parent coaches and will remove financial barriers for parents to participate in the GPS on-line program.
“The very first impetus for this crowd fund came when the pandemic hit,” she noted. “I instantly sensed that parents would be feeling like I did, when I was feeling isolated and alone, and really, really stressed out. … So reaching out right now can be phenomenally helpful to kids who are really often right now much more trapped in their homes than ever before.”
The intention is to help children through the provision of support to parents who are struggling with parenting during the pandemic.
“The pandemic just highlighted this so much that parent create the ambience, the psychological air space that our children breath,” she said. “So when we reach out to parents and we help parents who are struggling, what happens is they are able to be the parent they're meant to be for their children.”
A GPS survey of parenting during the pandemic highlights the stresses experienced by parents during this time. The survey was carried out among parents during September, and most of them indicated the pandemic has made parenting harder. Twenty-seven per cent of parents who are receiving some support with parenting said they are still struggling.
“The biggest issue during the pandemic for parents was their mental stresses about their children's mental health, and also big stresses about their own mental health, and that ranges from just feeling a lot of stress to full on mental health anxiety or depression,” she said. “Also though, very close behind that was the school issues. Lots of stress around schools.”
More than 37 per cent of survey participants mentioned they are totally overwhelmed and experiencing financial problems.
“In some ways we actually had expected people to be even more stressed, but we thought it's still very significant that over a third of families are feeling like they're isolated and alone, which means that their kids are not well supported either,” she said.
Parents have already been struggling before the pandemic, but they might have been able to find support in their community. The current situation has made that in many ways more difficult.
“At the same time the double whammy is suddenly there's all this uncertainty,” she mentioned. “Many of our families have lost work or they're worried about losing work, and they have these health concerns and school became really complicated at the same time that they lost what supports they did have. And many parents even prepandemic were feeling under supported, but then to lose what supports you do have at the same time that things are more stressful and more uncertain is really, really challenging.”
Green believes GPS can help parents with the support they need through the provision of real and usable techniques and the introduction of new ideas to help parents reframe their mindset.
“Parents nowadays are actually suffering from too much information,” she said. “It causes parents and caregivers to be that more stressed out, and this is pre-pandemic, and therefore has really contributed to an atmosphere that our children then pick up that stress.”
All the supports provided by GPS to parents take place through an online program format, which includes a supportive and practical private online community, live coaching calls, focused training for specific needs highlighted by the pandemic, and access to global parenting experts through the Great Parenting Show.
“We actually have a five-step program that we take people through and part of the purpose of the crowdfunding is raising funds so that if somebody wanted to get help, that we could take them through the five steps,” she said.
“Instead of always feeling anxious and overwhelmed, and reading and listening to podcasts and consuming new information, and scrambling for new things all the time, but never really applying one of two solid tips, it's getting parents off the hamster wheel really.”
An amount of $30 can support one family to receive help through GPS programming. The crowdfunding campaign has already raised about $7,000. For more information and to donate, go to the GPS website at www.greatparentingsimplified.com or to the GPS Facebook page (@GreatParentingSimplified).
Green will be in Swift Current on Nov. 9 to speak to the local Rotary Club about GPS and the crowdfunding campaign, and she is also planning to connect with other organizations during her visit. Her mother, Dixie Green, is spearheading the local sub-campaign for southwest Saskatchewan to raise funds that will be used to support parents from this region. Donations to this campaign can be made at: https://greatparentingsimplified.com/sc