When parents and children learn together, there are benefits for parent and child. These case studies show what this looks in practise.
The impact on parents
“When I moved to the UK, I didn’t know what to do with myself, let alone my child. Life was so different. It was so hard. I was helpless like a baby myself. How could I look after my child?
Parent and Child English helped both of us. I learned new words. How things work here, like birthdays and doctors. I got to know other mums. Everyone was so friendly. The teachers were kind. I could talk to other mums. We even went out together. I would never have done that on my own.
I wouldn’t have been able to put my baby in a creche. He had never been away from me. But learning together, it made me more confident when he started school, as well as him. It was difficult, but now he is a happy boy and I feel confident as a parent.”
Confidence gained on the programme helped parents engage with other support for their child. According to the end of programme questionnaires, 54% of parents had taken their child to access new support services since starting the programme, including the dentist, doctor and parenting programmes. 100% parents considered themselves more confident in talking to others in English about their child. For 73% of those parents, they felt there was a considerable difference. The programme was particularly effective in building the parents confidence in accessing health services for their child. 100% of the respondents felt more confident. 81% experienced a significant difference. This is a consequence of many of the sessions focussing around stories for the child with understanding of different health context for the adult embedded. More confident parents with better communication skills and awareness of systems results in earlier seeking of help and better-quality care of the children.
Spending time outside cramped accommodation and with other people is good for the family’s health and well-being as a whole. As one of the children explained: “We don’t go out in winter. Mum is scared of dark. She’s sad. Sometimes I feel sad too. When we come here, we get to play. There’s so much space here and things to do. It’s not so bad to go back”.
Another parent explained: “I feel very scared going to new places, but this is a safe place, where I can bring my children. We know people will be kind here and there will be no problem. I used to stay at home all holiday. We would see no one, even in summer holidays. We see no one for weeks. It is good to come out of the house and do something different. I don’t feel lonely and my children are happy.”
93% of adults saw making friends as a main benefit of the programme, which helped to develop social networks of support and activity outside of the sessions.
The impact on children
Jansher* started coming to family learning in October aged 2 years and 5 months. He attends with his mother. The family come from Afghanistan and as, the mother speaks very little English, the father introduced them to the group telling us that they were not used to going out, as the mother was not confident at speaking English. He said that Gul* (the mother) had had no access to education in Afghanistan so she would find learning quite difficult. He said Jansher was not used to seeing people as he stayed at home with his mother and this was the first group he had come to.
On the first sessions, Jansher wandered or ran around the hall, stopping momentarily to touch a toy or look at something. It was difficult to get any response from him as he had no eye contact with anyone except his mother and he would not join the group for story or singing.
By the third session he was able to sit with mum and stick some stickers on his puppet, he would also spend a few minutes pushing the cars around on the car mat as modelled by the facilitators. His mother was also beginning to talk to him more in his own language of Pashto and would sometimes sit with him on the mat. She also encouraged him more to join in activities.
By December, Jansher was able to look directly at the facilitators and sometimes follow simple instructions. He would play alongside other children with the blocks, enjoying building the blocks up in a group and then knocking them down. Jansher would now sit with the group for storytime for a few minutes and would grab the puppet as he came to say hello to him.
In January, Jansher was observed to sit with his mother for 7 minutes, sticking his craft and colouring in speaking occasionally to his mother single words in Pashto. He enjoyed using the scissors and cutting bits of paper with his mum. He also was confident to use rollers and cutters on the playdough.
In February, Jansher’s confidence and speech improved considerably. He really enjoyed playing with the toy kitchen and has been learning to role play. He has been putting food in the oven using words in English ‘pizza’, ‘oven on’, ‘apples’, ‘kettle’, ‘drink’. He brings over food with a smile after taking it out of the oven. When the adult has taken the food he said ‘again!’ and went back to make some more.
By March Jansher’s attention span has increased considerably. He has been observed sitting and interacting with his mum for 20 minutes, cutting, sticking and playing with playdough. He is now able to sit and join in most, if not all of the story and singing session. He will join in some actions of familiar songs.
Jansher is also interacting better with the other children in the group and is playing with a greater range of toys. He will now play alongside other children happily and he was observed passing food to another child so they could feed the teddy. He is smiling more and sometimes copies what the other children are doing, filling up the shopping trolley together or building up a tower. His mum intends to continue to bring him to sessions, as she is so pleased with his progress.
Layla* has been attending Parent and Child since March, age 18 months. Her mother is from Albania and has been living in the UK for 3 years. Her mother is struggling with depression and is finding adjusting to life in the UK difficult.
At first, there was very little interaction between mother and child: Layla would wildly run around the room, pushing doors to escape and grabbing items off the tables and throwing them. Mum would make no effort to intervene and initially our priority was about keeping Layla safe and encouraging mum to get involved with her child.
By the second week Mum began to call her child to her and Layla momentarily would come and join her to do some sticking on a craft activity. Layla had very poor attention for story and singing but would come over for a minute to watch what was going on. Over the weeks, Layla developed favourite songs and she would wiggle/dance in the middle of the circle. Recently she has been going to collect her own little chair to sit in the circle, putting it between the big chairs for singing time. Layla has also shown more interest in story time and will come up to cuddle a puppet or fetch props needed in the story.
Layla’s attention and ability to play with a range of toys has increased. When she arrived, she would explore everything for seconds at a time. As mum and the facilitators have sat with her, she has learnt how to play with toys including blocks and the tea set. She loves making tall towers and will clap each time after she has carefully made a tower. Mum is now sitting more regularly with her on the mat and talking to her, which has increased Layla’s confidence. Mum has started to follow Layla’s lead, letting her decide how they spend the time rather than continuing with her own separate task. Layla has enjoyed this and has focussed on activities for up to 15 minutes.
When Layla arrived, she was very shy; it was clear she was not used to being spoken to by other adults. She would hide her face or look away when a facilitator spoke to her. She is now confident to smile and wave greetings. She will play and respond with simple words and follow simple instructions. Layla also had little awareness of other children. Over the months, she has learnt how to play alongside other children. She found it hard to share toys with other children and started to hit those with a toy she wants. Mum was reluctant to use behaviour management strategies, but through the programme was able access some parenting support in the safe environment of the sessions. By the end of the programme, there was a real difference in mum sitting with Layla on the carpet and actively encouraging her to share and take turns. There has been a significant improvement in how Layla responds to other children.
* Names have been changed throughout to protect the privacy of individuals