Editor’s Note: In this series, Mind in the Making facilitators share their experiences guiding workshops for parents, educators, caregivers and healthcare professionals throughout the Suncoast. In May, The Patterson Foundation funded training for 31 people through the Mind in the Making Facilitator Institute, which breaks down executive functions into seven essential life skills that help children achieve their goals.
The Mind in the Making Spanish workshop shares life skills with parents.
What can I say… this was very interesting! We had women and men in our group. In our first class, the group was very quiet. But as classes progressed, they felt more confident and openly shared regarding their new learnings.
It was interesting to see the excitement, joy, and motivation to learn, and hear examples of how the group was implementing their new skills. The nicest thing for me as a facilitator offering this course to parents was hearing them talk about applying these newly honed skills that had never been introduced into their child’s life prior. For example, spending more time with their children, communicating, focusing, and having control and a better perspective on how they think; it changed their lives.
Each individual was receptive to absorbing the information because we offered this class in Spanish. Liliana Wright, facilitator of Team Fire and I carefully communicated so we could identify with the participants from the beginning. Some of them came from Mexico, Guatemala, or were raised on isolated ranches where they did not have much education.
This was a very dynamic group. At the end of this workshop, participants said they had begun using these seven modules in their personal lives and that they wanted to develop their full potential as parents. One of the stories shared was of a father that had just started his own business. He was reluctant to work for himself. Nevertheless, he kept attending the workshop, and through the modules he was learning; he realized that he was able to do much more than he thought. The last day of class he was very excited. He said that with what he had learned, he knows he can be successful in life and will teach his children how to succeed too. “One of the things that I liked the most is that this class taught us as parents to teach our own children how to achieve their full potential to succeed.”
