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Most parents work really hard all through the school year, keeping track of what children are learning and ensuring homework gets done. But keeping your child’s brain engaged over the summer can be challenging. If you don’t keep them engaged it could take four to six weeks for them to become fully alert when they return to school in September.

The question is, how you do keep them engaged without becoming their summer teacher? Here are tips to keep your child’s brain active all summer:

• Most libraries hold reading challenges over the summer. Encouraging your child to join the reading challenge can be a fun way to have a more diverse range of books in your home. Libraries are usually very good at supporting children and young people to find books that they are interested in and will enjoy.
• Encourage your child to keep a diary from the age of five years old. This can be a great way to support children. Not only are you asking them to write, you are asking them to think about how they feel, to create stories, to reflect on their day and on their relationships. They can share their entries with you or keep it private. It is a lovely gift to introduce to any child. You can get diaries from €1 to €10 depending on how fancy or lockable you want it to be. You never know, you could be creating a novelist, but regardless, their spelling and writing should benefit.
• Get your children to think about adding and subtracting e.g. when buying groceries get them to calculate the shopping bill. Maths does not have to be sums on paper. Help your child to see how we use numbers every day.
• Why not look for some new TV programmes to watch this summer that have more educational value e.g. animal documentaries and quiz programmes. When you start to engage with such programmes as a family it can lead to whole new conversations.
• Enjoy days out. There is so much for children to see and hear, people to meet and culture and diversity to experience. Taking children to historic sites or museums, festivals, religious sites or even on nature walks can help them to relate to information they learn in their school books.
• Finally, just take time to play and engage with your children − usually we are so busy it can be hard to find time to just sit and talk. Get to know your child. Help them to get to know you. How many of us really know our parents. Play, have fun, laugh, and share what life has to offer and you will have covered the full curriculum this summer and prepared your child well for next term.

This article is by One Family’s Director of Children & Parenting Services, Geraldine Kelly, as part of our weekly series of parenting tips. You can read the full series here.

Find out more about our parenting skills programmes and parent supports. For support and information on these or any related topics, call askonefamily on lo-call 1890 66 22 12 or on 01 662 9212.

 

 

We used to be called Cherish and we’d love everyone who has been involved over the years – clients, staff, supporters – to join us for a big celebratory event in Dublin’s Pillar Room on the Thursday 18 Oct. We will be recalling the past, with some of the founder members of Cherish, and looking to the future as One Family.  The seminar will also be interspersed with voices of parents from over the years, audio footage and a short video. There will also be visual displays about the work of the organisation. Places are limited and will be strictly by invite only so if you’d like to come call 01 662 9212 or email  info@onefamily.ie.

For more information see here

 

 

 

 

1 in 8 people in Ireland live in a one-parent family (Census 2011)

• 567,311 persons out of a general population of 4,588,252.

1 in 4 (25.8%) families with children in Ireland is a one-parent family (Census 2011)

• 215,315 lone parent families out of 834,266 families with children.

• We previously reported 1 in 6 families in Ireland were one-parent families from the 2006 census data; however this was counting couples who had no children. Normative conceptions of family presuppose the presence of children and including couples, whether married or not, in the calculation is potentially misleading. Therefore we have calculated the above 1 in 4 figure using a base of all families with children in Ireland.

Over half a million people live in one-parent families in Ireland (Census 2011)

• 567,311 persons
• 29,031 lone fathers as opposed to 186,284 lone mothers.

13.5 per cent of one-parent families are headed by a father (Census 2011)

 1 in 5 (21.7%) children live in a one-parent family (Census 2011)

• 351,996 children in one-parent families, out of a national total of 1,625,975 children.

 

 

One Family is Ireland’s leading organisation for one-parent families. We provide expert support to people parenting alone or sharing parenting and their children through our services, our life-long learning and welfare to work programmes.

We are compiling a panel of tutors/trainers(from across Ireland) to assist us in delivering our FETAC accredited programmes which cover personal and professional development; career planning; employability; communications; work experience; study skills and learning management; positive parenting; family communications; shared parenting and Dad’s workshops.  It is essential that you are able to demonstrate that you are educated to level 7 NFQ or equivalent; are an accredited facilitator (level 6 or above); or can demonstrate tutor and/or teaching proficiency. You must be able to clearly demonstrate the following competences:

Essential:

• Planning and enabling learning
• Principles and practice of assessment
• Equality and diversity
• Understanding  challenges for those parenting alone
• Teaching and learning in the lifelong learning sector.

Desirable:

• Delivering employability skills
• Evaluating learning programmes
• Understanding  motivation
• Understanding  challenges for those parenting alone

If you are interested in tendering and would like to join our panel please complete the form attached asap by Friday, 30 March and return to: Stuart Duffin, One Family, Cherish House, 2 Lower Pembroke Street, Dublin 2 or email sduffin@onefamily.ie. Stuart can also be contacted on 01 662 9212 if you want an informal discussion before submitting. Interviews will take place in the week beginning of 23 April.

Or alternatively you can download an application form

Download here [download]Application for tender[/download]

Return to Stuart Duffin

Email: sduffin@onefamily.ie

Thank you.