The 2006 Exploration and Discovery Sunshine Coast Child Care and Parenting Conference saw a crowd of over 65 parents and childcare workers take in some entertaining and informative presentations on everything from parachute play to peaceful parenting.
"Peaceful parenting was definitely the most popular course, and I think it was because it dealt with the issue of restitution, which is a concept I think is starting to catch on. It's about trying to encourage children and being respectful about what they do, not punitive, to be able to recognize their feelings and where those feelings are coming from. And also it touches on how you should see the child as an individual in a child care setting, for example," said Paul Calder, program consultant at the Sunshine Coast Child Care Resource and Referral program that put on the conference.
The conference started at 9 a.m. on Sept. 30 at Chatelech Secondary where keynote speaker Deb Calderon got everyone thinking "outside the box."
Through hilarious monologues and audience participation, Calderon had everyone focusing on the good in every situation. She handed out cards with words like spam, wrinkles and sunburn on them, challenging everyone to think of at least three positive things relating to those words.
"You can find something good in everything. You have the option to focus on the positive and the valuable," she said.
Calderon also challenged participants to try to mono-task at least once in their day.
"Multi-tasking is a word from the world of computers, not people. Women often get the reputation of multi-taskers, and we take on so much we don't take the time to slow down. I try to mono-task when I can. Here's what I do. I take an orange and I sit down and I peel that orange, smelling the orange and feeling the orange. Now, I'd rather be reading a book while I do this, but I stop myself and focus on the orange. It's a silly little way I make sure I spend some time just being in the moment," she said.
She encouraged everyone to laugh at themselves, handing out silly glasses for all to sport around town that day. She tackled the issue of stress with humour as well.
"In a way stress is good for you. Think back to the cave men. They're out foraging for food and they come face to face with a saber tooth tiger. That's stress. It's our reaction to danger. The fight or flight response. The problem is your body doesn't know the difference between real stress and perceived stress. Like for example, you get a letter from Revenue Canada in the mail, and you see a saber tooth tiger. Your mother-in-law drops by, and you see a saber tooth tiger we live with a lot of perceived stress, but you have to think to yourself, is this a real danger? It's probably not," Calderon said.
With everyone's mood and thought patterns changed, they were sent out to their respective workshops to learn more.
Participants learned about modern technology and its effects on young children, the golden rules for feeding children well, adult and child yoga, diversity in children, traditional Coast Salish drumming and singing, painting, parachute play and peaceful parenting.
Those workshops were complemented by displays set up in the main lobby from organizations such as West Coast Childcare, the SPARK early learning program, Parent Tot Drop In, parent support groups and toy and book retailers.
"Overall we had very good feedback and the response was very positive," Calder said.
He noted they learned that some courses, such as the peaceful parenting course, may need more time scheduled to get through all the material, while other classes, such as parachute play, could be a little shorter.
Calder and his group plan to compile the feedback and work on making the conference bigger and better next year.
"That's what we always do, learn from the previous year and make things better," he added.
