The moment is almost here: You’re nearly ready to welcome your new family member into the world. You’ve made your list, you’ve checked it once, twice, maybe three times -- but are you (and your hospital bag) ready for the big day? To make sure you’ve got all your bases covered, Family Connections invites you...
Kids seem to have endless amounts of energy. As a parent, keeping your little one safely occupied is easy when you can let them play outside. When the weather cools down, however, it can be tricky to find ways to keep them entertained indoors. The COVID-19 pandemic presents added challenges, requiring your family to spend...
I had a rough childhood. That’s not an opinion; I have a very high ACES score. ACES (adverse childhood experience scale) runs from one to ten with one being the fewest adverse experiences a child might have and ten being the most. Those experiences range from losing a parent to having an incarcerated family member. It...
The field of early childhood care and education had a big win in Washington DC last month. Congress passed the FY2020 government spending bills for the remaining fiscal year. The bill included a funding increase of over $1 billion for early learning and care programs, including a $500 million increase for the Child Care Development...
Holidays have so much to alert the sense this time of year! Schedule changes and bright, flickering lights; music piping from every store speaker, the bustle of crowds and the congestion of lines; dietary changes (usually in the form of a year’s worth of sugar), calendar overloads, invitations and obligations abound. Some of us are...
We all need to eat and in this season, so many fun choices abound! Help kids maintain their bodies and minds through these fun “project” foods. Snowballs 1 cup nutbutter/peanut butter of choice 1 ¼ cup of dry powdered milk ½ cup honey ½-1 cup shredded coconut Mix first three ingredients well. Roll into 1-2 inch...
North Central Montana is due for its first snow storm of the year this weekend, beginning on Friday, September 26, 2019 and continuing through the weekend. How do you know whether it will interrupt or divert your plans? Listen to the weather on your phone, radio, or television Listen for the words, “confidence levels”. This will tell...
Emergencies affect us all. Imagine having a child fall ill while at child care or having an accident while traveling. An unexpected call about a death in the family can derail a day, a week or even months. Floods, structure fires, blizzards, heatwaves, tornadoes, forest fires, and earthquakes affect more than just our families. Whole communities,...
Fun Fact #1: Science tells us that our child’s first 5 years are the best time to build the brain! Fun Fact #2: You already have what it takes to build your child’s brain! Fun Fact #3: The FREE app to make it happen is Vroom or use the website vroom.org! The purpose of the Vroom app and...
Summer To-Do lists can run something like this in Montana: swim, bike, play at the park, get ice cream, camp, picnic, sleep late, find shade or shelter, as well as they myriad of regular tasks such as finding childcare, keeping up on household chores and scheduling out work and vacation time. When making out your list...
