Healthy Boundaries in Relationships

By Eleanor Beeslaar

Healthy boundaries are important in all types of relationships. They open up opportunities to enhance your personal well-being, as well as your relational health. Healthy boundaries enable both you and the other person in the relationship to feel that your wants, needs, fears, and limits are being respected. When healthy boundaries are established and maintained, both people in the relationship can feel comfortable, respected, safe, and happy.

Talking about and promoting healthy boundaries is also an essential part in preventing unhealthy and abusive relationships. This involves providing people with the knowledge and skills necessary to understand the difference between healthy and unhealthy boundaries, to establish and maintain healthy boundaries in their relationships, and to talk to friends, family, and community members about healthy boundaries.

In honor of Child Abuse Awareness Month and Sexual Assualt Awareness Month (SAAM), we will be sharing more information about what healthy vs. unhealthy boundaries look like, what boundaries look like in different kinds of relationships, and how to handle boundary violations. We will also be providing helpful tips about how to set healthy boundaries, as well as how to talk to children about setting boundaries.

Bringing Out the Best

Bringing Out the Best is a free, short-term intervention for young children in Guilford County with social/ emotional behavioral challenges.  With parent permission, we can observe a child in the childcare environment and provide strategies to address challenging behavior. Bringing Out the Best supports the families of these children by offering home visits to bridge the gap between home and school, and also provides professional development to Guilford County teachers of young children.

Family Support Network of Central Carolina

Family Support Network of Central Carolina is a nonprofit organization whose mission is to ‘provide support, education, and caring connections to those who have a child with special needs or who experience a NICU stay’.  We do this through various programming, including parent education, mentoring, support groups, early intervention, and more. All of our services are free to local families. For more information about our organization, or to connect with us, please visit our website at www.fsncc.org.

How do you build your village?

 

By Eleanor Beeslaar

In our last blog, we talked about the challenges of parenting young children and the benefit of having a village of support to help you along this journey, but you may be wondering, “How exactly do I build a village?” In today’s blog, we will help you build your village by providing tips to help you find ways to connect with the resources and services available in our community.

A great place to start when looking for parenting information, resources, or services in our community, is to reach out to friends, family members, a pediatrician, or your child’s teacher or school counselor for recommendations. Teachers and school counselors are especially helpful when seeking resources, as schools are often central points in our community and an essential part of your village. They have access to lots of great information about community resources available to children, parents, and families!

Another way to find out more about the different organizations that provide services to help parents and families with young children is to search online. Many of the organizations in our community have websites with lots of information about the resources and services they provide, as well as methods for contacting them. They may also have social media accounts, such as facebook, instagram, and twitter, where they post about local events you can attend to receive information and resources.

One of the best ways to learn about and connect with organizations in your community, is to attend events like the Family Village Resource Fairs. Events like these are a great way to meet face-to-face with organizations and develop relationships with the people who can help you overcome parenting challenges you may be facing.

We encourage you to attend the Family Village Resources Fairs, which will take place on April 9th and 10th! For more information about locations and times, visit our facebook event https://www.facebook.com/events/309941119603767/. You can also learn about some of the organizations in our community, who will also be at the Family Village Resource Fairs, by tuning into our blog for the next week.

We hope these tips will help you get connected and build your village of support!

There is a Village: Series Introduction

 

By Eleanor Beeslaar

Parenting young children is hard work and can present new challenges that can feel overwhelming and difficult to navigate on your own. There is so much new information to learn, and it can feel like there isn’t enough time to grasp everything you feel like you need to know. It is normal to feel this way, especially as a new parent, and it is okay to ask for help when you’re not sure how to handle new, and often challenging situations with your child.

“It takes a village to raise a child.” This is a phrase that many of us have probably heard circling through the media or in parenting groups, and it carries a lot of truth to it. Having a group to support you in this new stage of life can make a world of a difference. Though most of us don’t live in villages these days, our friends, family members, and community make up a modern day village that can help support us through parenting challenges. In fact, Guilford County has it’s very own village of organizations that provide helpful information, resources, and services to parents of young children.

To help parents become more connected to the many wonderful resources throughout our community, HRI along with several other community organizations will be hosting our second annual Family Village Resource Fairs! For more information please visit the facebook event: https://www.facebook.com/events/309941119603767/. We will also be highlighting some of the organizations that will be present at the resource fairs in our blog series leading up to the events.

We hope to see you at the Greensboro Family Village on Tuesday, April 9th 6-8pm or the High Point Family Village on Wednesday, April 10th 6-8pm. Stay tuned throughout the next week to learn more about how you can build your own village with the plethora of resources and services available to parents of young children throughout our community!