On September 15th, Nyah started her 2nd and last year of preschool...
I just can't get over how much she has changed from last year to this year. Last year, when we started preschool she still looked like a baby.
This year, she looks like a little lady.
This year we were very fortunate to be offered supported child development services through Reach. Here is a brief bio about Reach...Reach Child and Youth Development Society is a non-profit organization that has been providing programs and services to children and their families since 1959, currently serving the communities of Delta, Surrey and Langley, B.C. We offer a variety of services designed to meet the needs of children to ensure their optimum development. Over 1000 children and their families benefit from our services on an annual basis.
Nyah has struggled with separation anxiety. (Ughh I hate labels). Not only was I unable to leave her at preschool, the volume of her anxiety would get so loud it would hold her back from doing things she really wanted to do... like playing and interacting with the other kids. It's pretty heartbreaking to see your child so desperately want to play but not be able to. We had been on the waitlist for services since last February and got the call that they had reached our name on the waitlist in August! Perfect timing! After an in home meeting and a lot of background information it was decided that Nyah would be given a support worker to help her during preschool. Together, as a team (Jay, myself, Teacher Cathy, Estelle our child development case manager and Marrian our support worker) we would all work together to best support Nyah. Can I just tell you how amazing it feels to have this village of people standing with you supporting your child!
Quick side story... I'm on the board at the preschool and at one of our meetings an agenda item was to discuss Nyah's support worker. Our preschool was gifted a large sum of money from another PP Preschool that closed it's doors and this money can only be used for certain things for ex. like paying the tuition of a family that can no longer afford it. At this meeting, Nyah's support worker's wage was discussed (it's paid by Reach) and it was decided that the preschool would use some of it's gifted money to top up her wage. Before the motion was to be put forward it was asked if there were any questions or concerns about this wage top up... The only question brought forward was "Was the amount enough?"... It took everything I had not to ugly cry at the table! No one asked why not save it for something else... no one said they thought it was too much.... all they asked was was it enough. I will never forget that moment. This school has been such a blessing to our family and we are so thankful.
Ok back on track... our support workers name is Marrian and she is a parent of a child in Nyah's class. At first I thought this may not be a good idea because Nyah already knew her as Cassidy's mom and I was worried that she wouldn't see her as her teacher but boy was I wrong. Nyah loves Marrian. It's been a perfect match. I won't bore you with all the long details of all our meetings and goal setting but I will tell you that Nyah has made some AMAZING progress in a very short period of time. It started out that she was right by my side but as her and Marrian bonded she started to venture further and further away from me. Eventually, I was sitting at the back of the class and Nyah would occasionally look up for me. We started prepping her for seperation by reading a lot of books... the kissing hand, the invisible string and by watching an episode of Daniel Tiger were he learns that grown ups always come back. Slowly and by following Nyah's lead I started to be out of sight for short periods of time.... fast forward to today and I'm leaving the class room for an hour and 20 minutes at a time!!!! She has become so confident and independent. When ever I come back into class I'm always greeted with a huge smile and a "Mommy! You came back!". It's so sweet! I couldn't be more proud of Nyah and it's only November! I can't wait to see where we will be at come June!
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