Sometimes it’s just not as easy to give your youngest child the same level of attention you gave to your older kids. Life just seems to get in the way. But of course every child deserves the best possible parenting.
Terri Harris, whose three children range in age from 5 to 23, was living in a homeless shelter when she signed up for Isles’ Parents Empowering Parents (PEP) initiative. Terri remembers thinking that “PEP was going to be boring – where people talk at you instead of with you and listening,” but by the third meeting she let down her guard. As she began to communicate with others in the group, she noticed she was also talking more with her kids and reviving rituals long forgotten. “I never expected to get down on the floor and play with Barbie or color again,” she says.
Terri is grateful for the opportunity PEP gave her to “share experiences with other women.” Like other PEP parents, Terri has decided to “better my life and the life of my children” by continuing to work on her parenting skills and getting involved in her community. PEP has encouraged her to be more active in her youngest child’s life, and she is now vice president of the PTO at her daughter’s school and volunteers there three to four hours a week.
Terri has set three goals for herself: moving out of the homeless shelter; continuing with her interest in computers; and, the biggest one, owning her own home. Terri says that PEP and Isles have given her a support group that makes her feel like a member of a family and capable of doing and wanting more.