The baby who loved books
Here's a little job-related story that is true. Well, elements have been changed because job information is confidential.
Imagine a baby girl taken from her parents. She only sees one of them a couple of times each week. The other parent is not permitted to approach anywhere near her. When the one parent who is allowed to see her has that precious time, that parent spends the entire time discussing their own ailments and problems. One comment was, "Watching a baby is so boring. You just gotta give them a toy to make them happy."
Safety is an issue during the visitation. The visiting parent has had many oops moments of nearly dropping, losing, and otherwise jeopardizing the baby's safety. Of course a crawling baby CAN zip away from its caretakers very quickly. Yesterday we had the visitation at a public Storytime event. The baby has attended Storytime before, with a different Observer in attendance. Before the Storytime began, she crawled over to a shelf of books, stood up and smiled. She took one of the books -- AND OPENED IT CAREFULLY to look at the pages. We're talking about a young child, not even a year old. This same child had, during a previous visitation, pulled out a book from the diaperbag and thrust it into the attending parent's face. The baby was ignored, the book returned to the diaperbag and a bottle stuffed in the baby's face instead.
During the Storytime the baby was very animated. Several times she crawled over to the person reading the story aloud and stood up, hanging on to her. She crawled to the table were the books were displayed and tried to take one of them. Parent scooped her up and brought her back, giving her a toy to play with. After a while of this, baby grew fretful and restless, crawling over to other children in the circle and trying to take their toys. Her parent seemed very tired and "out of it" not participating in the fun songs and games we played. Soon the time was up and Foster parents came to take the baby away. I mentioned to them how much the baby seemed to love books. They replied that they read to her and the other children and had a houseful of children's books. I was glad to hear that.
That was just one simple story of the many, many situations I deal with in my new job.
Imagine a baby girl taken from her parents. She only sees one of them a couple of times each week. The other parent is not permitted to approach anywhere near her. When the one parent who is allowed to see her has that precious time, that parent spends the entire time discussing their own ailments and problems. One comment was, "Watching a baby is so boring. You just gotta give them a toy to make them happy."
Safety is an issue during the visitation. The visiting parent has had many oops moments of nearly dropping, losing, and otherwise jeopardizing the baby's safety. Of course a crawling baby CAN zip away from its caretakers very quickly. Yesterday we had the visitation at a public Storytime event. The baby has attended Storytime before, with a different Observer in attendance. Before the Storytime began, she crawled over to a shelf of books, stood up and smiled. She took one of the books -- AND OPENED IT CAREFULLY to look at the pages. We're talking about a young child, not even a year old. This same child had, during a previous visitation, pulled out a book from the diaperbag and thrust it into the attending parent's face. The baby was ignored, the book returned to the diaperbag and a bottle stuffed in the baby's face instead.
During the Storytime the baby was very animated. Several times she crawled over to the person reading the story aloud and stood up, hanging on to her. She crawled to the table were the books were displayed and tried to take one of them. Parent scooped her up and brought her back, giving her a toy to play with. After a while of this, baby grew fretful and restless, crawling over to other children in the circle and trying to take their toys. Her parent seemed very tired and "out of it" not participating in the fun songs and games we played. Soon the time was up and Foster parents came to take the baby away. I mentioned to them how much the baby seemed to love books. They replied that they read to her and the other children and had a houseful of children's books. I was glad to hear that.
That was just one simple story of the many, many situations I deal with in my new job.
