March 2016 Island Parent

Island Parent Celebrating

28 Years

The Resource Publication for Vancouver Island Parents

March 2016

Dispatches from the French Alps the First of a Six-Part Series Competitive Parenting How Social Media can Make Parents Feel inadequate

Spring Break Programs

Experience the precision of customized vision

Dr. Joslin, Dr. Morin & Associates Doctors of Optometry

Langford: #105–814 Goldstream Ave 250-474-4567 www.langfordoptometrists.com Sooke: #5–6726 West Coast Rd 250-642-4311 www.sookeoptometrists.com

New Patients Welcome

Did You Know?

A school‐age child’s eyes are constantly in use in the classroom and at play. For school‐age children, several different visual skills must work together so they can see and understand clearly: • Clear vision (both distance and up close) • The ability to maintain focus and accurately at any distance • Binocular vision skills (including control of eye position) • Movement and tracking

Don’t forget to: • Talk with your child about the examination prior to the visit and encourage questions • Make an appointment early in the day so that your child is well rested.

• Offer to look at websites such as www.absee.ca that have online games to help familiarize them with what will happen during their appointment.

Educational Excellence to the Glory of God

PacificChristian.ca

250-479-4532

Come and See. Facebook.com/YourPCS

We’re excited to be opening our second store this spring at 1581 Hillside Ave! Curiosity • Diversity Exploration • Nature Play-Oriented Learning

Register Now for September 2016

3905 Haro Road, Victoria BC

250-477-3731 arbutusgrove.ca

strollers • hiGh chairs • car seats • sleeP aids cloth diaPers • travel Beds • carriers • sWinGs natural sKincare • diaPer BaGs • and More!

Mattick’s Farm #121–5325 Cordova Bay Rd 778-265-5432 momease.ca facebook.com/MomeaseBabyBoutique

Register

NOW

Spring Break Camps Schools out sooner than you think, register today.

CEDAR HILL RECREATION CENTRE G. R. PEARKES RECREATION CENTRE GORDON HEAD RECREATION CENTRE COMMONWEALTH PLACE RECREATION CENTRE

250-475-7121 250-475-5400 250-475-7100 250-475-7600

saanichrec.ca IslandParent.ca

March 2016 1

Island Parent Celebrating

28 Years

on for Vancouver Island

The Resource Publicati

Parents

March 2016

Dispatches from the French Alps The First of a Six-Part Series Competitive Parenting How Social Media Can Make Parents Feel Inadequate

Spring Break Programs

Please visit any of our valued partners to pick up your latest copy of Island Parent.

GREATER ViCTORiA Greater Victoria Public Libraries Vancouver Island Regional Libraries Greater Victoria Recreation Centres Thrifty Foods All 25 Serious Coffee locations Island-wide Victoria Gymnastics Country Grocer Chapters Vitamin Shop The Bay Centre (info booth) Scallywags Royal BC Museum Buddies Toys Crumsby’s Market on Yates Market on Millstream Victoria Conservatory JamTots Lifestyle Market Shaw Ocean Discovery Centre

DUNCAN Duncan Mall (centre court) Indigo Red Balloon Cowichan Recreation Centre Cowichan Aquatics Centre Kinderbeez Duncan Tourist Information CHEMAiNUS Chemainus Theatre

Articles Green Purchases Worth Your Green ............................................................... 8 Winds of Change .......................................................................................... 10 Big Ideas for Young Minds ........................................................................... 14 Spring Break Programs ................................................................................. 16 Competitive Parenting .................................................................................. 18 Space to Grow .............................................................................................. 19 Jump Rope Fun ............................................................................................ 22

Columns Editor’s Note .................................................................................................. 3 Healthy Families, Happy Families ................................................................ 30 Dadspeak ..................................................................................................... 32 Book Nook .................................................................................................. 34 Is There an App for This? ............................................................................. 36 New Parent Pages ......................................................................................... 38 Maternity & Beyond .................................................................................... 44 Nature Notes ............................................................................................... 46 Cut It Out .................................................................................................... 48

Departments IPM Notes...................................................................................................... 4 Party Directory....................................................................................... 20, 21 Family Calendar ........................................................................................... 24 Around the Island ........................................................................................ 27 Family Services Directory ....................................................................... 40, 41 Preschool & Child Care Directory.......................................................... 42, 43 Business & Professional Directory ................................................................ 45

SHAWNiGAN LAKE Community Centre LADYSMiTH Ladysmith Recreation Centre NANAiMO Nanaimo Aquatic Centre Quality Foods Country Club Mall Regional Library – Boban Fairway Market Island Natural Health Foods Woodgrove Centre

For a complete list of where you can find a copy of Island Parent Magazine, go to

islandparent.ca 250-388-6905 2

Contents: March 2016

Island Parent Magazine

island Parent Magazine, produced by Island Parent Group Enterprises Ltd., is a monthly publication that honours and supports parents by providing information on resources and businesses for families, and a forum for the exchange of ideas and opinions. Views expressed are not necessarily those of the publisher. Letters (max 250 words) should be emailed to the Editor at editor@islandparent.ca. No material herein may be reproduced without the permission of the Editor. Unsolicited manuscripts are welcome and should be emailed to editor@islandparent.ca. island Parent Magazine is distributed free in selected areas. Subscriptions can be obtained by sending $35.00 (includes GST) with your name and address to the address below. Canada Post: Canadian Publications Mail Sales Product Agreement 40051398.

island Parent Magazine

830-A Pembroke St, Victoria, BC V8T 1H9 Tel: 250-388-6905 Website: islandparent.ca Publisher/Owner: Mark Warner Editor: Sue Fast Sales & Marketing: RaeLeigh Buchanan Publisher’s Assistant & Sales: Linda Frear Distribution: Ray Cutts, Ted Dawe (Mid-Island) Founders: Jim Holland & Selinde Krayenhoff Production: Eacrett Graphic Design Printed at Black Press, Victoria Cover printed at Hillside Printing ISSN 0838-5505

On the Cover: Ushuaia (21⁄2) Cover Photo: Karen McKinnon, McKinnon Photography, mckinnonphotography.com

FOllOW uS ON FacebOOK & tWitter facebook.com/islandParent twitter.com/islandParent IslandParent.ca

10 1

Beachcomb. For some of the best beach glass on the Island, head to Glass Beach (as it is informally known), at the foot of Beacon Avenue in Sidney. Bring a bucket.

Go Bowling. Langford Lanes in Langford, Miracle Lanes in Sidney, Duncan Lanes in Duncan, and CR River in Campbell River are perfect on rainy days.

Stay Up Late & Play in the Dark…before the clock springs ahead on March 13 and the days get longer. Play flashlight tag, glowin-the-dark Frisbee, or stargaze. The next morning: sleep in.

Editor’s Note

6 10

Enlist the Neighbors’ Help…and build a back yard fort.

7

4

Find a Waterfall. There’s Englishman River Falls, southwest of Parksville, Little Qualicum Falls, a few kilometres down the road, and the Mystic Beach hanging falls out past Sooke, to name only a few. Google “Vancouver Island waterfalls” for the one nearest you.

IslandParent.ca

5

2

Plant Flowers. What better time to plant flowers than on National Plant a Flower Day, March 12? Sunflowers germinate quickly—and kids can eat what they sow.

3

9

Spring Fling Things To Do

Feed Seals at Oak Bay Marina…and feed the kids. You’ll find bags of frozen herring for sale in the giftshop for the seals, and gelato for sale in the Marina Dockside Eatery.

Set Sail to Saltspring’s Saturday Market.

Starting on Saturday March 26, the Saturday Market is back in business from 9am-4pm, rain or shine, featuring over 140 artisans and food producers—all at the water’s edge.

And kid-friendly.

8

Play in the Snow. Mt. Washington’s Ozone Snow Tubing is open seven days a week. $20/ person for a two-hour pass; $30/person for a full-day pass. Family passes (2 adults, 2 children) are $60/family for a two-hour pass; or $90/family for a full-day pass.

Sue Fast

Pick up a copy of Island Parent Teens.

On stands now—and filled with valuable information, insights, and resources, along with words of wisdom/frustration/elation and support, Island Parent Teens will give parents of little ones a glimpse into the future. You’ll find articles on helping your teen find a job, cellphones and citizen science, the upside of video games, teen sexuality, and youth mental health. Island Parent Teens is free and available at rec centres, libraries, schools, health units and most places you pick up Island Parent.

March 2016 3

IPM Notes

SPRING BREAK

March 14-24

Visit a CRD Park

Spring into Action 4-5 Years

JDF KIDS COTTAGE

4-5 Years

JDF PLAYROOM

M-F 9-1pm

M-Th 9-1pm

Mar 14- 18 $160 101473 Mar 21- 24 $128 101474

Little Chefs 3-5 Years

JDF KIDS COVE

M-F 9-11am M-Th 9-11am

Mar 14- 18 $90 Mar 21- 24 $72

101475 101476

Pre-School Musical Camp 3-5 Years

CENTENNIAL CENTRE OAK RM.

M-Th 9-11am

Mar 21- 24 $64

101222

Nature Camp 3-5 Years

JDF PICNIC SHELTER

M-F 9-11am

Mar14- 18

$80

102004

Sportball Multi-Sport Camp 3-5 Years

JDF LOWER CLUBHOUSE

M-F 9-12pm M-Th 9-12pm

Mar 14- 18 $140 101742 Mar 21- 24 $112 101744

Aspiring Young Artist Camp

9-12 Years CENTENNIAL CENTRE CRAFT RM.

M-Th 9-3:30pm

Mar 21- 24 $128 101572

Pottery Camp

9-12 Years JDF POTTERY STUDIO

M-F 9-12pm M-Th 9-12pm

Mar 14- 18 $110 101218 Mar 21- 24 $88 101219

Mad Science Lab

5-11 Years JDF GLLANGCOLME ROOM

M-Th 9-12pm M-Th 9-3:30pm

Mar 21- 24 $110 101662 Mar 21- 24 $176 101663

Mad Science Science Sleuths 6-12 Years JDF GLLANGCOLME ROOM

M-F 9-12pm M-F 9-3:30pm

Mar 14- 18 $128 101660 Mar 14- 18 $215 101661

Horseback Riding

6-16 Years CEDAR VISTA STABLES

M-F 9-12:30pm Mar 14- 18 $350 101650 M-Th 9-12:30pm Mar 21- 24 $280 101651

Camp Curtain Call 6-8 Years

Choose from a full slate of fun and informative CRD Parks programs this month. Spring is here, and it’s time to head for the hills.

Follow a CRD Regional Parks naturalist up Mill Hill, looking for early signs of spring along the way at What’s Up? Who’s Out? (Mar 6, 1-2:30pm) a guided walk for those 5+ years at Mill Hill Regional Park in Langford; imagine a day in the life of Rascally Raccoons (Mar 12, 1-2:30pm), a guided walk for all ages at Devonian Regional Park in Metchosin; become a nature super sleuth at Tracks and Traces! (Mar 13, 1-2:30pm) at this 8+ years guided walk at Elk/Beaver Regional Park in Saanich; solve the riddles to find the clues hidden along the trail with a CRD Regional Parks naturalist at Mystery Creature (Mar 14, 1-2:30pm) at this 5+ years guided walk at Witty’s Lagoon Regional Park in Metchosin; and stay busy during Spring Break with all of the extra programs from Mar 14-24. To find out more and to pre-register (required for some programs), visit crd.bc.ca (or google Winter Nature Outings and Events Brochure).

Festival Nanaimo Festival Nanaimo is back and that means loads of awesome family fun this March with events for the whole family including signature events: • The internationally-acclaimed Barrage 8 returns to Nanaimo with a high-energy show for a family audience on March 12 • The Port Theatre, a Festival partner, presents Irish band De Dannan in celebration of St. Paddy’s Day on March 19 • The world-famous Glenn Miller Orchestra comes to Nanaimo March 21 and 22 • The Boots & BBQ Feast and Barn Dance March 26 on Easter weekend

JDF UPPER CLUBHOUSE

M-F 9-4pm

Mar 14- 18 $185 101658

8-11 Years JDF UPPER CLUBHOUSE

M-Th 9-4pm

Mar 21- 24 $148 101659

Groove Camp

8-11 Years CENTENNIAL CENTRE OAK RM.

M-F 9-3:30pm

Mar 14- 18 $150 101220

Register at 250-478-8384 www.westshorerecreation.ca Festival Nanaimo ends with a bang on April 2 with the 2nd Annual PirateFest Family FunDay and the Nanaimo Chamber 4 Island Parent Magazine

of Commerce’s Food Truck Festival and the Vancouver Island Symphony’s Community Day (free).

Other family activities include: • Spring Break activities at Nanaimo Museum • Crimson Coast Dance’s The Body Talk Project features a Spring Break workshop by teens for the community • The Fletcher Challenge Trail Race & Family Run/Walk with an Easter Egg Extravaganza on Good Friday at Westwood Lake • Greater Nanaimo Cycling Coalition’s three cycling tours, including the Easter Bunny Populaire, fun on bikes for the whole family For more information, visit festival nanaimo.com.

Tillicum LEGO Mania Challenge Registration is underway for the 7th annual Tillicum LEGO Mania Challenge on March 19-20 at Tillicum Centre. Over 100 contestants, ages 5-14 years will be showcasing their LEGO masterpieces for a chance to Win LEGO prizes. This year’s theme: Life in the Sea. Meet Lego Certified Professional, Robin Sather, and watch him build a giant LEGO mosaic creation. Children under 14 years who are not contestants will have a chance to try out the mini build area. The Victoria Lego Users Group (VicLUG) will also be on hand with some of their fun LEGO creations. Prizes will be awarded for the top three entries for ages 5-8 years and 9-14 years on Sunday, March 20 at 2pm.

Drop by the lower level of Tillicum Centre during regular mall hours and see an exciting LEGO exhibit. For more information, visit tillicumkids.com.

30th Annual Pacific Rim Whale Festival Join the fun on the shores of Vancouver Island’s wild west coast at the 30th Annual Pacific Rim Whale Festival (PRWF) from March 12-27. Celebrate the arrival of upwards of 20,000 grey whales—often traveling within viewing distance of shore—on their northbound migration from the Baja Peninsula to Alaska’s Bering Sea and beyond.

Throughout Tofino and Ucluelet and around Pacific Rim National Park you’ll find an array of events. Bring your pets, favourite dolls, outrageous costumes or your float, and join the Parade of Whales and Wonders (Mar 12, 10:15-11:30am), sign up for the 20th annual Chowder Chowdown (Mar 20, 11:30am-2pm), get creative at the Sea Creature Cookie Decorating event at Common Loaf Bakery (Mar 21, 4-5pm), IslandParent.ca

drop by Maritime Kid’s Day Tofino (Mar 23, 1-4pm), among other family-friendly events. Many of the activities are free, with the purchase of an PRWF Events Button.

It’s an all-out celebration of our coastal lives, featuring grey whale and marine life education, inspirational talks and interpretive walks, children’s activities, culinary events, First Nations cultural workshops, and more. For more information, visit pacificrimwhalefestival.com, e-mail info@ pacificrimwhalefestival.com or phone 1-250-726-7798.

Turn Off the Lights on Earth Hour On Saturday March 19, from 8:309:30pm, hundreds of millions of people around the world will turn off their lights for an hour to demand action on climate change. But that’s just the beginning. Every hour, Canadians are taking small steps to lessen their impact on the environment.

From hanging your clothes to dry to taking transit to work, those small steps add up to huge changes for the better.

Earth Hour is about more than just turning off the lights. It’s also an opportunity to turn on young minds. Visit schools.wwf.ca to find out how to help students understand Earth Hour and the importance of taking action against climate change. There are many ways to mark and celebrate Earth Hour at your child’s school, from outdoor activities to lights-out events. Before you start planning for Earth Hour, remember to register your child’s school on EarthHourCanada.org so the school’s participation can be counted towards the Canadian total.

Fossil Fair Who lived here millions of years ago?

Dinosaurs, trilobites, ammonites, enormous clams and sharks lived in the ancient tropical coral seas and palm tree forests that covered Vancouver Island. The Victoria Palaeontology Society will hold its 19th Fossil Fair on March 19-20 from 10am-4pm at the Swan Lake Christmas Hill Nature Sanctuary, 3873 Swan Lake Road in Victoria.

The Fossil Fair will display a rich and diverse variety of ancient fossil animals and plants from the Cambrian (550 million years ago) to the end of the last Ice Age (10,000 years ago). The fossils include dinosaur bones, ammonites, trilobites, corals, mollusks, insects, giant palm leaves and microscopic fossils.

Bring your family and your own fossils for identification. Kids can follow a scavenger hunt, or make fossil and dinosaur rubbings.

IslandParent.ca

The Fossil Fair is an educational experience for all age groups.

Admission by donation. For more information, phone 250-479-0211 or visit swanlake.bc.ca.

TC10K School Team Challenge The TC10K and Island Farms have teamed up to offer cash prizes to schools participating in the teams category at this year’s TC10K on Sunday, April 24.

Three cash prizes of $1,000 will be awarded to school teams in the following categories: Fastest Team Overall; Most Team Members; and Best Team Spirit. All schools on Vancouver Island from kindergarten to Grade 12 are eligible to enter in either the Thrifty Foods 1.5K Family Run, or the TC10K run. Run or walk with more than 15,000 others through the streets of Victoria in the 27th Annual TC10K. To register, visit tc10k.ca. Team registration deadline March 25. For more information, phone 778-677-5RUN (5786).

Easter Egg Hunt for Signs of Hope in Africa Signs of Hope in Africa is hosting its 8th Annual Easter Egg Hunt on Sunday March 27 at Beckwith Park in Saanich from 10am1pm. You’ll find three bouncy castles, a craft station, carnival games, roaming super heroes, Star Wars characters, face painting with 20+ face painters, entertainment and Global music with DJ Hinga. Saanich police cars and fire trucks will be parked waiting for your little ones to explore. Ace, the Saanich Police Mascot, will be on site for pictures and handshakes as will Marty from the Victoria Royals. The Easter Egg Hunt consists of three age categories: 3 year olds and under at 11am, 4-6 year olds at 11:15am, and 7 years and older at 11:25am. A visit from the Easter Bunny will keep the kids hopping.

Food includes barbecue burgers/hot dogs/ vegetarian option for $6 combo (burger/ chips/drink), along with a coffee/popcorn station. There’ll be baskets for raffle which include several birthday party events. Rain or shine, no pre-registration required. $5 (cash only) per child aged 13 and under, adults free. All proceeds support children and families in Zanzibar, Tanzania. Drop by Easter Sunday and know that your participation helps a family on the other side of the world. Together we can make a difference.

Sponsors include Thrifty’s Hillside, Investors Group, Gala-Van Party Rentals and Coast Environmental. Visit signsof hopeinafrica.org.

Yoga, Support and Fun! March 2016 Schedule 975 Fort Street,Victoria | 250-595-4905

We have lots of classes, activities and support groups for Moms, Dads, Babies and Toddlers.

All classes are drop-in.

Come on down and try it out!

Sunday

Prenatal Yoga 10:30am Dads’ Group 12:30

Monday

Mommy & Baby Yoga 1pm Baby Massage 2:30pm Yoga for Labour & Birth 5:15pm

Tuesday

Mobile Baby Group (9-18mos) 11:00am Mommy & Baby Strength & Stretch 1:00pm Prenatal Strength & Stretch 5:15pm

Wednesday

Songs and Rhymes for Babies 10:15am Postpartum Pelvic Floor & Core 11:30am Older Baby Group (4-9mo) 1:00pm Prenatal Yoga 5:15pm

Thursday

Toddler Yoga 10:15am Mom & Baby Yoga 11:30am New Baby Group (0-4mos) 1:00pm Prenatal yoga 5:15pm

Friday

Prenatal Yoga 10:15am Sing and Sign 12:00pm En français! 1:30pm Pregnancy Happy Hour 5:00pm Find more information on all of our classes and groups, on our website at www.motheringtouch.ca From your mobile device go to motheringtouch.ca/mobile for our on-the-go class schedule - bookmark it on your phone for quick access!

Are you about to become a Dad? Are you a Dad with a baby under one year?

Come and join our Dads’ Group An informal, drop-in group for new fathers and fathers-to-be to discuss the joys and woes of being a DAD! Every Sunday from 12:30-2pm See our website for more information.

March 2016 5

IPM Notes Teen Writing Contest at GVPL

Victoria & Vancouver Island 1-866-518-7287 Nanaimo 250-756-9794 Or online at: www.welcomewagon.ca

Art Classes Spring Special

Introduction to Art For children 5–8 years old

Drawing • Painting Sculpture • Cartooning Portfolio Preparation • Day and Evening Classes • One or Two hour sessions • Technique Oriented • Ages 5 and Up

COMPLETE A PORTFOLIO COURSE – Ages 14 & Up, DESIGNED ESPECIALLY FOR YOU FOR ENTRANCE INTO: INTERIOR DESIGN, ARCHITECTURE, BACHELOR OF FINE ARTS, FASHION & MORE Register Now for Ongoing Programs

Artistic Statement Gallery & School of Fine Art Call Joan at 250-383-0566

www.artisticstatementgalleryandschool.com

6 Island Parent Magazine

Enter Greater Victoria Public Library’s Teen Writing Contest. Categories: • Short Story: Grades 7-9 and Grades 10-12 • Poetry: Grades 7-9 and Grades 10-12.

• Random: Grades 7-9 and Grades 10-12.

What is the “Random” category, you ask?

Writing in any format that is not a poem or short story. This is where you can enter your graphic novel, your zine, your original song lyrics, your screenplay, a personal essay, your blog, your best tweets…

If you are not enrolled in a grade as defined, your entry can be considered based on your age, rather than grade. Entrants must be born between January 1, 1998 and December 31, 2003.

Submissions must be your own work and not have been published elsewhere (submissions that you wrote for a school assignment are accepted and encouraged) and must be received no later than midnight, March 29.

Short stories or other forms (such as essays) must not exceed 2,000 words in length.

Entrants must have a valid Greater Victoria Public Library card. One entry per category per person.

Winners will be selected by April 30 or earlier. Judges will be from a panel made up of library staff, local writers, and teens from GVPL’s Teen Council.

First prize: a $100 gift certificate to the store of your choice. Runners up in each category will receive a $25 gift certificate to any store. Winners and their writing will be featured at a Teen Writers’ Reception, May 1.

For more information, rules and submission guidelines, visit gvpl.ca/audiences/ teens/teen-writing-contest.

Grandparents Raising Grandchildren (GRG) Support Line Parent Support Services Society of BC’s Grandparents Raising Grandchildren Support Line assists grandparents and other relatives raising a family member’s child to navigate complex services systems such as Ministry of Children and Family Development (MCFD) and others. The support line helps grandparents find answers, assistance, and the resources they need to prevent or solve problems, and learn about benefits and other services that will support the whole family.

The Grandparents Raising Grandchildren Support Line is staffed by two part-time advocates with training in advocacy, social work, family law, and government services pertaining to kinship caregiving. They can be reached by phone at 1-855-474-9777 (toll free anywhere in B.C.) or by e-mail at GRGline@parentsupportbc.ca. The GRG Support Line is open from 11am-3pm on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday.

At all other times callers are encouraged to leave a voicemail message or send an email, which will be returned promptly.

Victoria Single Parent Resources Centre 1Up, the Victoria Single Parent Resource Centre (VSPRC), provides practical support, opportunities for growth, and a sense of hope for one-parent families across Greater Victoria. Guided by skilled and committed staff and trained volunteers, the centre offers services to create foundations for personal and community growth in a welcoming and non-judgemental environment. The centre aims to help parents create stronger families and healthier children.

The VSPRC offers comprehensive life skills programs, workshops and support groups that typically run from September through June. For a schedule of upcoming workshops, visit singleparentvictoria.ca or phone 250-385-1114.

Big Brothers Big Sisters The Big Brothers and Big Sisters Mentoring programs provide boys and girls with a role model and a friend to talk to and share the experiences of growing up. Through regular outings, a relationship is developed between the mentor and the mentee that is built on trust and common interests, and is supported by our experienced case-workers.

The result is a life-changing experience for both the mentor and the mentee.

The Big Brothers and Big Sisters Mentoring programs usually require two regularly scheduled outings a month, each of several hours, and a minimum one-year commitment.

The programs strive to: provide a role model and a friend for mentees; promote the importance of staying in school and maintaining healthy relationships with family and peers; instill trust and self-confidence in order to make healthy decisions; encourage leadership skills and independent thinking; and above all, make a difference while having fun.

IslandParent.ca

To learn more about becoming a mentor or donating to the Big Brothers and Big Sisters Mentoring programs, phone 250475-1117 or visit bbbsvictoria.com.

Royal BC Museum’s Learning Portal The Learning Portal (learning.royalbcmuseum.bc.ca) is a dynamic and intuitive website, designed to appeal to the different ways students of all ages choose to learn, featuring video content, audio recordings, images and stories and articles. Whether a visual learner, someone who wears headphones 24/7 or a lover of the written word, the Learning Portal offers plenty of ways for kids and adults to connect to BC’s human history and natural history.

The Learning Portal was designed with input from a diverse network of educators across BC, including teachers, librarians and staff from the Ministry of Education.

The Learning Portal features photos and bios about contributing researchers, collection managers, conservators, curators and archivists from the Royal BC Museum staff.

This gives users the opportunity to get to know the people behind the stories—and perhaps inspire a few young learners to someday work at a world-class museum.

The Learning Portal will continue to add rich multimedia content and new interactive features. The next stage includes the ability for learners to “pin” the most interesting articles, stories, videos and images to their own board, similar to Pinterest.

The Royal BC Museum bridges the stories of yesterday with today’s technology, the better to reach learners of any age, no matter where they live. Visit learning. royalbcmuseum.bc.ca.

Shapedown BC The goal of the Central Island Healthy Lifestyles: Shapedown BC is to help children (age 6-17) and their families make realistic and meaningful lifestyle changes that can lead to improved health, enhanced emotional well being and healthy weight management.

This is done by encouraging families to adopt healthier eating habits, achieve a more active lifestyle, and improve how they communicate and support each other.

Program support is provided on a group basis—with families of children at similar age levels—twice a week for a period of approximately three months. This is followed by an additional three months of support to help families maintain the lifestyle changes they have started.

IslandParent.ca

The program works from two Nanaimo locations, with intake taking place at the Bowen Centre, followed by a family-based group program at the Oliver Woods Community Centre in Nanaimo.

For detailed program information or to download a physician referral form, visit the Shapedown BC website at viha.ca/children/ CI-healthy-lifestyles.htm.

Come Out & Play with the Victoria Conservatory of Music Sometimes you have to call on your neighbours to make you feel at home.

Scheduled to officially open in April, the Victoria Conservatory of Music is first inviting their new community to a soft opening of the VCM satellite location at Westhills in Langford with free sample individual music lessons and group classes throughout the month of March. Supported by Island Savings, ‘March’ into Music Month offers a taste of the VCM to all who are interested in exploring music, from toddlers and their parents to teens and even seniors who’ve secretly harbored a desire to play.

Considering your first home purchase?

Four secrets you need to know!

What to do and what not to do.

Call now to discuss a step-by-step approach to buying your first home.

250-891-6776 ConnieLebeau.ca ConnieLebeau@RoyalLePage.ca

   

Sample lessons will be available in both the contemporary and classical music.

Free individual lessons and group classes are open to all age groups—individuals or families who already play an instrument, parents and their young children, or anyone who wishes to learn any kind of music, for the entire month of March. Whether it is voice or instrumental, Classical, Jazz, Blues, Swing, Folk, Bluegrass, Fun, Rock, Pop, or Hip Hop, sample lessons will be available The Westhills location of the VCM is located at #210-1314 Lakepoint Way, where it will share the building with the new Langford YMCA/YWCA, and a new branch of the Greater Victoria Public Library, offering a place nourish to mind, body and spirit. For more information visit vcm.bc.ca/westhills.

For more information on free sample lessons visit vcm.bc.ca. •

    

    

  March 2016 7

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Community Board Making our Community a Better Place to Live

1Up Victoria Single Parent Resource Centre 1-up.ca Art Gallery of Greater Victoria aggv.ca Camp Pringle CampPringle.com Child Care Resource & Referral childcarevictoria.ca Kaleidoscope Theatre kaleidoscope.bc.ca Royal BC Museum royalbcmuseum.bc.ca Silver Threads Service silverthreads.ca TC10K tc10k.ca Tri for MS Triathlon TriStarsTraining.com/ Beginner-Tri-for-MS Victoria Children’s Choir victoriachildrenschoir.ca Victoria Conservatory of Music vcm.bc.ca Enquire about non-profit brochure or magazine distribution in Greater Victoria:

publisher@islandparent.ca 8 Island Parent Magazine

Rachel Dunstan Muller

Green Purchases Worth Your Green I

f you make purchases based on ‘ecofriendly’ labels, you’re not alone. Savvy advertisers are aware of our collective environmental angst, and are greenwashing conventional products with all kinds of vague and/or dubious claims, especially in the areas of kids’ toys, baby products, cosmetics and cleaners. While it’s no surprise that ecologically-motivated consumers are most likely to purchase green-labeled products, a recent study in the journal Frontiers in Psychology found that we make those purchases even when the products’ information contradicts the green image of the label. In other words, we’re being duped!

We can cut through the hype and better align our spending power with our convictions by adopting this simple definition: a truly green purchase must a) fill a legitimate need, and b) do the least amount of harm and/ or the most amount of good when compared to all reasonable alternatives. I’ve compiled a list of purchases that meet this definition.

But there is a caveat: the best environmental option is almost always to re-use or refurbish what we already have, or to borrow or buy second-hand. Going green isn’t an excuse to go on an unrestrained shopping spree!

On the go: Transportation accounts for a quarter of Canada’s greenhouse gas emissions, so any purchase that results in more human-powered travel gets a thumbs up. For wannabe walkers in our climate, that means a comfortable pair of walking shoes, good rain gear, a backpack, and a sturdy stroller with a rain cover if you’re transporting young children. If you’re traveling a little further and have access to a safe route, a bicycle is a great investment. Cycling is five times more efficient than walking, and dramatically more efficient than driving. (One hundred calories will provide a cyclist with enough energy to go up to five kilometers. The 100 calories will power a car a scant 85 meters.) Already have a bicycle gathering dust in your garage?

Invest in a tune-up at your local bike shop to ensure it’s roadworthy. If walking or cycling aren’t options, consider a bus pass. Whatever green mode of transportation you choose,

don’t forget your reusable water bottle and shopping bags.

In the kitchen: Reducing the amount of meat and animal products we feed our families is one of the most significant ways we can fight climate change. To do this we’ll need some good recipes, which makes a basic vegetarian and/or vegan cookbook a worthwhile purchase. Check the library first, and make sure that you end up with a resource that matches your family’s taste preferences and the chief cook’s experience level. To dramatically cut back on the garbage produced in your kitchen, consider investing in a collection of re-usables: food containers in a variety of sizes for packed lunches and storage, cloth napkins to replace paper ones, and glass or stainless steel straws. If you don’t already have one, acquiring a good spatula will help limit your food waste.

To keep your kitchen surfaces sparkling clean and sanitary, all you need is a supply of vinegar and baking soda. Used full strength, white vinegar is an effective sanitizer, killing harmful bacteria like E. Coli, salmonella, and staphylococcus. Dilute it half-and-half with water in a spray bottle, and you’ll have an Earth and family-safe cleaning product to neutralize odours and remove grease from your counters or stovetop. Baking soda is also a deodorizer, and a safe alternative to commercial scouring powders.

In the bathroom: Faucet aerators and lowflow showerheads are inexpensive and easy to install, and will result in dramatic water savings. As water conservation increasingly becomes an issue on the Island—especially during our drier summers—you may also wish to install low or dual-flush toilets if you still have conventional ones. Switching to recycled, unbleached toilet paper is a simple way to save energy and trees, and is beneficial for your septic system if you have one.

In the area of personal hygiene, a Diva cup and/or reusable cloth menstrual pads are an excellent investment in waste reduction. Cloth diapers are also an undeniably green purchase, especially if you buy them on the used market, and/or plan to use them

IslandParent.ca

on multiple children. Be prepared to try a few different types before you invest in a whole set.

In the rest of the house: Warm slippers and cozy sweaters will allow you to keep the thermostat turned down a degree or two in the cold months, saving energy and money.

Insulated curtains are another worthwhile investment, helping keep the heat in your house during the winter, and out during the summer. An electric fan uses a fraction of the

run, jump & play this spring break!

Arts • Cooking • Hockey • Swimming • Sports • Tennis • Themes • & More!

Day Camps: Monday-Friday March 14-25

Savvy advertisers are aware of our collective environmental angst, and are greenwashing conventional products with all kinds of vague and/or dubious claims, especially in the areas of kids’ toys, baby products, cosmetics and cleaners. energy of an air conditioning unit, and may be enough to keep you comfortable during the hottest months. Since your dryer is one of the biggest energy consumers in your home, setting up an indoor clothes rack and/or outdoor clothesline can be beneficial. (Just make sure that hang-drying indoors doesn’t lead to condensation problems.) Finally, when you need to replace a major appliance, seek out the most efficient Energy Star model.

At the library: Strictly speaking, you don’t need to spend money to use the library—unless you rack up overdue fines, or lose an item and have to replace it. But our public library systems are so wonderful, that I couldn’t end this article without mentioning them.

A library card is the doorway to an endless supply of free resources, entertainment, and fun programming for your whole family. Best of all, these resources are shared by and available to the whole community. What could be greener? If you haven’t been to the library recently, drop by your nearest branch and be prepared to be blown away. To find out the location of your nearest branch, or to search the library’s collection and make requests online, visit gvpl.ca in Greater Victoria, or virl. bc.ca anywhere else on Vancouver Island. If you live in a remote or isolated area, check out the free service “Books By Mail” under the “Using the Library” tab on the VIRL site.

Rachel Dunstan Muller is the mother of five, and a children’s author. Her previous articles can be found at islandparent.ca.

IslandParent.ca

Oak Bay Recreation Centre 250-595-7946 NOW HIRING FOR SUMMER CAMP STAFF

Henderson Recreation Centre 250-370-7200

recreation.oakbay.ca

COMPREHENSIVE FAMILY DENTISTRY family centered practice extended hours evenings and weekends the latest equipment and caring staff request an appointment online

saanichdentalgroup.com 119–1591 McKenzie Ave, Victoria

250 477 7321

info@saanichdentalgroup.com

Victoria’s favourite dentists believe a healthy smile starts early. Free first visit for children under 5.

March 2016

9

Windsof

Change 10  Island Parent Magazine

IslandParent.ca

Kate Wiley

...Dispatches from the French Alps It’s the stuff of dreams: A year in the French Alps! Thanks to the Deferred Salary Leave Program available to BC Public Service employees, Kate Wiley and her family of four are living the dream. Her two boys are enrolled at the local elementary school of just 80 pupils. Despite having its own ski hill that overlooks Lake Geneva, the village of Thollon-les-Mémises is mostly off the tourist radar.

Halfway through their year living in the French Alps, Kate shares her family’s experiences in this installment, the first of a six-part series.

A

ll night long, violent gusts of wind tore through the Alpine valley we’ve been calling home for the past six months. The wind whistled through the rafters and seemed to rattle the very foundations of our chalet. It’s majestic Lake Geneva, or Lac Leman as the locals call it, that sends us these spirited storms. Even now, at midday, the wind continues to buffet the leafless trees with occasional outbursts. When will it subside?

When will the snow return?

“The most inevitable material fact of our universe is the one we have the stormiest relationship with. Either we fight it as it is appearing, or we mourn for it as it passes us by, but we are hardly ever at peace with change.” These are some very astute words from Gangaji, a Texas born spiritual teacher and author.

As parents, it seems we are always wishing change would get here sooner. “When will he learn to wipe his own bum?!” my husband grumbles as he storms out of the kitchen in response to my son’s call. Meanwhile, a beautifully executed advertisement by an organic baby food company leaves me in tears. It plays on the fleeting nature of each stage of childhood. I fear I will blink and my boys will have transformed into adolescents.

IslandParent.ca

March 2016 11

presents...

The Gr eaT B

alanz o!

Sat. April 9 at 1pm

“I want to stay with you my whole life,” says my youngest, climbing into my lap as I am writing that last sentence. Uncanny how often that kid taps into my thoughts. I assure him I will remain with him for as long as he wants. No, he protests, you have to go on playdates. “Playdates” are how his father and I explain the rare occasions when we leave the children behind with a babysitter.

Already aware at age three that the tables will turn, Stuart has enlisted me as a future babysitter: “When I’m all growed up, I’m going to make chairs for you and Daddy, and you’ll come for a visit and, you’re gonna stay at my little boys’ house while I go to

tion to power. Roles are clearly defined, and that same hierarchy is evident in the family structure. Suffice it to say, the American tendency toward forthrightness could get a daughter-in-law into hot water in these parts.

Not that I have heard any of this firsthand. French women refrain from discussing family dynamics among friends. One girlfriend described her relationship with her mother as “turbulente parfois” and left it at that. Whereas personal details are the common currency of many of my Anglo friendships, revealing too much in French company is considered gauche. This is where

a celebration with grownups. You will live in California and I will live in Spain with a million little boys and one little girl and we will speak Spanish.”

How lovely that would be! In truth, I have been doing a bit of matchmaking on the sly: Facilitating playdates with Andrianne, our three-year-old neighbour, in hopes that one day I might return to Thollon-les-Mémises for a wedding. You can’t find a more Savoyard family than hers. They operate the local Fromagerie Vesin in the same compound which shelters four generations of Vesin’s.

The idea of living across the street from one’s parents has both appealing and less savoury aspects. Even Andrianne’s great grandmother, who joined us for le goûter on Friday, admitted that rifts in the extended family unit can be catastrophic when living in close quarters. (She was speaking purely in the abstract, of course.)

Perhaps there’s something of the French character that lends itself to this kind of familial arrangement—something that we North Americans tend to lack. The French are fans of formality, particularly in rela-

my limited language skills come in handy.

As we fly past the halfway juncture in our year abroad, I am absorbing French ways little by little. I pour wine with lunch and avoid Happy Meals at all costs. I allow my kids far greater access to unsupervised play.

I’ve even mastered the crepe. But I am a far cry from the picture of French sophistication painted by American fashion magazines. According to Town & Country, French women spend a fortune on lingerie, don’t leave the house without a coating of lipstick and a spritz of perfume, and reserve sweatpants exclusively for the gym.

Apparently these rules do not apply to the Alps. Me and my lululemon pants are in good company around the Thollon schoolyard, where women collect their kids in cars bristling with the family’s ski gear. Lipstick makes me feel garish here, and as for my lingerie, ce n’est pas ton affaire.

VIU’s Malaspina Theatre An amazing classic circus performance!

Tickets $10 2 for $18

At the door and in advance Mid Island

250-754-7587 | theatreone.org

SPRING BREAK A CT I V I T I E S

Family Discovery Tours Self-guided: 10am-5pm March 14, 18 & 21 Night at the Museum 5:30pm - 7:00pm March 15 & 22 Kids Drop-in Activities 1:00pm - 4:00pm March 16, 17, 23 & 24 Chinatown ~ Coal Miner Space ~ Vikings Admission by Donation ~A FESTIVAL Nanaimo Event~

www.nanaimomuseum.ca 12 Island Parent Magazine

When Kate Wiley is not living with her family in the French Alps (which is most of the time), she calls Langford home.

IslandParent.ca

IslandParent.ca

March 2016  13

Tye Landels & Brad Buie

60 days to

CHANGE YOUR GRADES Big ideas MAKE THE MOST OF THE REMAINING SCHOOL YEAR If you need to boost your child’s grades while there’s still time to impact the final report card, call Sylvan today.

Bring in this coupon and receive $50 OFF an assessment or $50 OFF your first month’s tuition when you enroll for 8 hours or more of Homework Support.

Valid at participating locations only. Cannot be combined with any other offer. Minimum purchase 8 hours of Homework Support. Expires 05/31/16.

Act now to make a difference.

Sylvan Victoria

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SYLVANLEARNING.CA

Spring Break Programs A wide range of full and half-day programs including:

Passion Sports Spring Break Elite Camp Five days of intensive basketball skill development

Fashion Design & Illustration

Develop a seasonal collection of fashion designs to start your collection

Springtime Chefs

Use fresh, local ingredients to make a range of nutritious and delicious recipes

Visit our website for information on these and other programs: smus.ca/spring or call the Education Extension office at 250-370-6120

FOR ALL KIDS IN VICTORIA AGES 5–15

14

Island Parent Magazine

smus.ca

for Young Minds

R

esearch isn’t just for grown-ups. We tend to think otherwise, as big ideas are usually abstract with a lot of backstory. But let’s not underestimate our kids. They ask the big questions, like why is the sky blue?

“Well,” says Mom, slyly tapping the query out on Google, “That’s a good question…”

Ideafest at the University of Victoria (March 7 to 12) offers an exciting opportunity to indulge both your and your kids’ curiosity. Now in its fifth year, Ideafest presents over 50 free, unique, and inspiring events to the Victoria community on research topics ranging from coral reefs and mushrooms to comics and video games. Events are engaging and accessible, including hands-on exhibits, performances, screenings, open-mics, and fast-paced talks. The hands-on exhibits provide opportunities for some fun-filled learning and experimentation—from lowtech to high-tech. On the low-tech side, From Papyrus to Pixels: The (Ongoing) History of the Book (Saturday, March 12) exhibits rare books and manuscripts from UVic Special Collections to tell the tale of how books and reading have evolved since ancient times. Young bards can try their hand at writing like Shakespeare by making their own ink and scratching out some poesy with a sixteenth-century style quill.

On the high-tech side, youth can enter the “pop-up arcade” at Games Without Frontiers 2.0: The Social Power of Video (and other) Games (also on Saturday, March 12).

Featuring video games from local, homegrown studios, this drop-in symposium combines education and play in fun and innovative ways. Parents may shake their heads in dread at an outing to campus that threatens to plunge their children back into

IslandParent.ca

the virtual reality they occupy on the living room couch, but this event makes the case that games can improve mental and physical health. Plus, perhaps a learning moment for all generations, video games may offer solutions to pressing social issues, such as figuring out ways to better welcome refugees into the community.

Another kid-plus-parent crowd-pleaser is That Chemistry Show (Friday, March 11). UVic Chemistry professor Dr. Alex Brolo and his fellow “mad” scientists will put modern chemistry research into action with cool tricks to delight kids of all ages.

Smoke, bright lights, and even shrinking cups will illustrate the extraordinary power and beauty of chemistry.

Young science-lovers will also enjoy Megawatts and Marbles: A playful approach to understanding power systems (also on Friday, March 11). Step into a fun, interactive game with marbles, where you are the power plant and must work with other players to meet the demand for power.

More than simply a good time, this event affords a unique opportunity to educate youngsters about how power systems work and the importance of energy conservation.

In addition to these exciting kid-friendly events, Ideafest offers its usual array of stimulating events for parents. At Myths of the Good Mother (Monday, March 7), scholars from across campus will explore and critique how we represent and idealize motherhood. Parents are invited to join this open round-table discussion and share their own perspectives on what it means to be a mother. Parents of school-age children may also take an interest in the Sooke Elementary School Principles of Learning Project (Wednesday, March 9), a groundbreaking pilot project to include Indigenous knowledge and worldview in public school curriculum. Hear from Grade 5 students, teachers, and education experts to learn how the First Peoples Principles of Learning could transform teaching and learning across British Columbia.

Want more information about Ideafest 2016? Visit uvic.ca/ideafest for a complete schedule of events, including a “youth” sublist category. Follow @UVicResearch and #ideafest2016 on Twitter for updates on the festival. Ideafest is organized by the University of Victoria.

Little League Baseball (Ages 4Big – 13League Years) Experience Challenger Baseball (Ages 4 – Adulthood) A recreational program including 6 different divisions.

“Where everyone is a winner” The Challenger program Presents Players are placed on teams of their skill level. We also for boys and girls with special needs, who can enjoy the offer more competitive summer Baseball and Softball programs for those aged 9 years and over. Players earn their spot on summer teams.

game of baseball along with the millions of other children who participate in this baseball.

2016 “VICTORIA” Softball (Girls 7 – 18 Years) Blastball (Ages 1 – 3 Years)SUPER CLINIC “Baseball for the underage Little Leaguers!” Entry level for team sport. Bring friends, your own Road team.

3501make Tillicum at

“Girls in Sport!” The girls’ softball program offers recreational and competitive programs for all girls. Goals include skill development, team work Hampton Park, Victoria BC and having fun!

(across from Burnside Plaza – Park at Gorge Soccer Fields)

March 25 & 26, 2016 VICTORIA CLINIC Cost (Friday & Saturday) Hampton Little PLAYER’S League is proud to host several events this season including:

Baseball

Big League Experience Super Clinic – (ages 7 thru 13 Mar 25 &26) 60th Anniversary Celebration – May 28 & 29 (includes funday) BC Provincial Challenger Jamboree – June 18 9-10 District Baseball Championships – end of June – early July

Minis

9:30 – 10:30am

Friday & Saturday

$45

Minors

10:30am – 12:30pm

Friday & Saturday

$55

Friday & Saturday

$85

Dates & Times1:15 – 4:15pm Majors

at the Hampton Clubhouse on Tillicum Road across from Burnside Plaza.

• On-line www.hamptonlittleleague.org anytime even now!

• Saturday-Sunday Jan 23 & 24 and 30 & 31, Feb 6 & 7: 1-4 PM • Wednesday Feb 10: 6:30-9 PM Kidsport & payment options available - NO PLAYER TURNED AWAY BECAUSE OF FINANCES!

Player/Coach Registration

Player Name___________________________________________________ Address_______________________________________________________ Contact number________________________________________________ Email address__________________________________________________ Medical Card #_________________________________________________

Waiver: I give permission for my child to participate in the “BIG LEAGUE EXPERIENCE” SUPER CLINIC and release all BLE personnel and guest instructors from any LIABILITY while in attendance at the clinic.

Signature__________________________ For registration and program information:

www.hamptonlittleleague.org or call 250 686 9614 IslandParent.ca

March 2016 15

Spring Break Programs Ah, spring—a time of blossoms, breezes and Spring Break. There’s lots to do during the break as you’ll see from the following listing.

For more information on any of these programs, please refer to the ads in this issue. You’ll find a handy Ad Index on page 45. Have fun in the—dare we say it—sun!

Join us this Spring for inspiring art classes and camps in the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria’s (AGGV) Studio. Connect with cool new ideas, techniques and experiment with the creative process. Classes are for a wide range of ages and inspired by Gallery exhibitions featuring: Water + Pigment + Paper Experiments in Watercolour from the AGGV Collection. Register online at aggv.ca/art-studio, in person at 1040 Moss Street or by phone: 250-384-4171. For more information email: jvandepol@aggv.ca. See you in the Studio.

Let your child experience everything you hope for them. Camp Pringle is more than just an amazing week of fun; our trained and screened leaders provide safe place for children to develop socially, mentally, physically and spiritually. Spring Break Camp for ages 7-16 at only $460 + GST, Sunday to Friday with meals provided by our dietary Chef Lorri. You will love Camp Pringle. Visit camppringle.com for easy online registration or call 250-743-2189.

Christ Church Cathedral School’s Spring Break Program, “Lux Mundi”, provides a safe and exciting experience for your child.

We have a high supervision ratio, energetic and experienced staff, excursions every day, opportunities for new friendships and lots of laughs, plus all the facilities of Christ Church Cathedral School, including a full size gymnasium. Children learn and grow in a safe and enjoyable environment. The program runs from March 14-23. Spaces still available. Registration also open for summer 2016. Contact us at 250-383-5125 or email: luxmundi@cathedralschool.ca. cathedralschool.ca.

This spring the City of Victoria offers a range of programs for everyone. Looking for ways to keep the kids busy and active over Spring Break? Try Horseback Riding Camp or World Cup Soccer Camp. There will be Spring Break Fun Swims daily March 12-27 from 1 p.m. to 3:30 p.m. Mom and Dad, why not hire a personal trainer while the kids are in the pool? You can find more information on all our programs and services, as well as drop-in schedules, at victoria.ca/recreation or by calling 250-361-0732.

Echo Ridge Stables is offering spring and summer camps for kids in a positive and productive game based learning environment. Lesson plans are designed based on the age specific FUNdamentals learning stage outlined in Sport Canada’s Long-term Athletic Development Program. Camp activities include daily rides (various disciplines covered throughout the week in “theme” days), stable management, crafts, in-hand and under saddle games. Daily healthy snacks included. Check out echoridgestables.ca for more information.

Kate Rubin Theatre & Drama Studio specializes in dramatic training for children, young people and adults. Classes, workshops and individual coaching in theatre, film and TV are offered throughout the year. Within a professional and supportive learning environment, students flourish with improved acting skills, stronger confidence, creative thinking, public speaking skills, spontaneity and versatility in physical and vocal expression. For more info, or to register, contact katerubin@telus.net or 250-3868593. katerubintheatre.com. facebook. com/KateRubinTheatre.

Enjoy Spring Break with Science World On The Road Tour at Mayfair Shopping Centre, March 21-24. Live shows at 11am 16 Island Parent Magazine

and 3pm daily with Science On The Spot activities from noon-2 pm. Great for all ages.

This is a free and fun event for the entire family located in Centre Court. For more information call 250-383-0541 or visit the event listing at mayfairshoppingcentre.com.

The Nanaimo Museum is offering drop in programs for children ages 5-12 and their families during spring break. Admission is by donation and caregivers must be present for the duration of the program. Night at the Museum activities happen Tuesdays, March 15 & 22 from 5:30-7:00pm, and include lantern tours through the coal mine in the dark and other hands-on activities. Selfguided Family Discovery tours are on Mondays, March 14 & 21 and Friday, March 18 from 10:00am-4:00pm. The popular drop-in heritage programs run Wednesdays & Thursdays. Each afternoon has a different theme with related activities: March 16 is Chinatown, March 17 is Coal Miner, March 23 is Space and March 24 is Vikings.

Recreation Oak Bay is your headquarters for Spring Break Camp fun. Join us for themed activities, crafts, out-trips, swimming and more. New Exciting camps include Dino Days, Movie Mania, Challenger and Nature camp. Have a blast at Oak Bay Recreation Centre with daily theme swims, fun on the ice or enjoy Specialty, Aquatic and Sports camps! Check recreation.oakbay.ca or call 250-595-7946 to find the right camp for you!

Looking for Spring Break fun? Then try one of our great programs at Saanich Parks and Recreation. We have a large selection to choose from, including computers, dance, arts and crafts, martial arts, sports and daycamps for kids 5-15 years of age. Also, don’t forget about our fantastic fun swims in the pool or Everyone Welcome skates.

Whatever you’re looking for, you will probably find it at one of our four recreation centres. Check out recreation.saanich.ca for more information.

IslandParent.ca

Spring break is coming and when students want to tackle something new and exciting, the Spring Break programs at St. Michaels University School offer plenty of ways for young people to be engaged and entertained.

From baking to sports to fashion design, holiday programs are diverse and engaging. The Passion Sports team also returns with more sell-out elite basketball camps.

The Spring Break Programs at St. Michaels University School are open to all children in Victoria ages 5 to 15 and appeal to a wide range of interests. For details, visit us at: smus.ca/spring or call 250-370-6120.

Spring is all about new beginnings… so don’t wait a moment longer to learn to play music!

Playing an instrument is a richly rewarding lifetime asset. Now is the time to begin your musical journey at Tom Lee Music Academy, where music is fun and learning is easy for all ages. tomleemusic.ca/academy.

Spring Break fun at West Shore Parks & Recreation. Check out a variety of camps at Juan de Fuca Recreation Centre in Colwood and Centennial Centre in Langford.

Preschoolers will ‘Spring in to Action’ with camps for little chefs and mini performers.

Active Play and Sports camps offer school age kids a chance to get out and play, but if arts are more your thing check out Aspiring Artists, Pottery and more. Visit westshorerecreation.ca or call 250-478-838 to register. West Shore Parks & Recreation, 1767 Island Highway, Victoria BC.

Enjoy Spring Break with Science World On The Road Tour at Woodgrove Centre in Nanaimo, March 14-18. Live shows at 11am and 3pm daily with Science On The Spot activities from noon-2 pm. Great for all ages. This is a free and fun event for the entire family located in Centre Court. For more information call 250-390-2721 or visit the event listing at woodgrovecentre.com.

Family Getaways Bring your family to Blue Vista Resort and start a new tradition.

Located steps from Bennett Bay and the Gulf Island National Reserve with

its beaches and shoreline walks on Mayne Island, this Tourism BC Approved Accommodation has been catering to families for over three decades. With nine individualized housekeeping cottages to choose from and a quiet lawn with barbecues, picnic tables and a children’s play area, this small familyrun resort invites you to join a tradition many families have been enjoying for years.

Cabins start at under $100/night. Visit bluevistaresort.com for rates and details.

1-877-535-2424.

Park Sands Beach Resort is a family-oriented RV park and campground located downtown on the sandy shores of Parksville Bay beside the Community Park with its fabulous playground, water-spray park and BMX/ skateboard park. Families have been coming here for generations to enjoy the wide expanse of sandy beach, the surrounding natural beauty, numerous recreation opportunities like hiking, biking and golf, and our central location, which makes for easy day trips to other Island destinations. parksands.com.•

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HUMPBACK WHALES GALAPAGOS

Located inside the Royal BC Museum 250-480-4887 • imaxvictoria.com

Send Us Your Stories!

Island Parent is looking for articles for upcoming issues. Some of our best content comes from people just like you—Vancouver Island parents who are passionate about their families and are dealing with the day to day issues of raising children in our community. Share your experiences, your thoughts on a particular issue, your ideas on places to see or projects to do—anything related to parenting.

Check our Writer’s Guidelines at islandparent.ca for specific information on submissions.

We’d love to hear from you. Please email submissions to editor@islandparent.ca.

IslandParent.ca

March 2016 17

Tim Collins

Competitive Parenting How social media can make parents feel inadequate

F

ood photos. Lots of them.

Posted online by some seemingly amazing mothers, crowing about the lunches they had assembled for their children, these lunches were, well, beautiful. They looked as though they had been prepared by a team of professional caterers, food stylists and over-eager nutritionists. Food was shaped as everything from bears to bunnies and—I’m not making this up—included everything from artistically skewered veggies designed to resemble cartoon characters to cleverly crafted edible airplanes.

Handmade decorations topped off organic, gluten-free cupcakes. It was incredible.

It was also a bit embarrassing.

I raised two children back in the 80s and packed about a gazillion lunches during that time. As I recall, I always provided reasonably healthy lunches—at least I’m pretty sure I tried. After all, both my children survived and neither of them ever developed scurvy or rickets. I always included something like

a healthy sandwich, a piece of fruit—or some fruit-like substance—and some sort of treat (marshmallows in a plastic bag were favourites). I don’t recall, however, looking at the lunch bags and thinking “By God, I’m a genius! I have to take a picture of this lunch and send it to all my friends!”

Looking at those photos, though, I began to suspect that I must have been a terrible parent. I had obviously done it all wrong.

Perhaps today’s parents were truly much better than their parents had been.

I told my adult daughter about the online lunch photos and then asked her what she prepares for my six-year-old granddaughter.

“Good grief! Are you kidding me? I cut the crusts off the sandwiches sometimes,” she said. “You want to make her lunches like that, knock yourself out. She probably wouldn’t eat them anyway. She likes crackers and salami.”

My daughter explained how bragging

FSMT Spring Break Camp March 14 to 18 or March 14 to 24

Come join us this March for Four Seasons Musical Theatre Spring Break Camp! Over the course of the camp we will teach the fundamental skills of stage acting, singing, and dancing as well as some skills for auditioning. Our goal is to foster confidence and success on the stage.

One week camp option March 14–18 or two week camp option March 14 to 24, from 9am–4pm. Available for children 7–14 years old.

about parenting skills seems to have become a social media phenomenon.

Take Elf On The Shelf, for example.

Apparently during the past Christmas season, it wasn’t enough to just move the elf from place to place. Enterprising parents did everything from fashioning new outfits for the elves to creating entire story tableaus.

Elves baked muffins, cleaned with miniature feather dusters, painted pictures, wrote letters—all set in scenes that might have found a place in one of those miniature museums.

The message, at least to me, seems to be: “If you’re not doing this, you’re doing it all wrong and if you were just a little more caring, or inventive, if you weren’t so lazy and loved your child more, you’d have set up nightly elf dioramas too.”

University of Pennsylvania sociologist Annette Lareau says this “hothouse style” of parenting causes us to view raising children as a project.

“There’s a competitive nature that is woven into the process. It’s child-centered bragging, pure and simple.”

The good news is the recent backlash. A link posted on a local parent’s group web site led me to “The 11 Most Annoying Types of Parents on Facebook,” an article published by Huffington Post. According to the article, over-zealous Facebookers need to ease up. They may have time to fashion all four Ninja Turtles out of snap peas, but other parents have too much on their plates (no pun intended) to play with their food.

Bragging Rights: Four Rules 1. If you want to brag about your child, do so…but make sure you aren’t really bragging about what a great parent you are. The truth is that the whole nature vs. nurture debate is far from resolved.

2. Brag about effort, not accomplishment.

Posting a video of your child trying to achieve a skill in the face of difficulties should be as inspiring as those that feature child prodigies.

3. Realize that, generally speaking, the world doesn’t care if your child is toilet trained early or has perfect pitch. Every child is special and what seems amazing to you may just be tiresome to others.

4. Be sensitive. People have differing levels of time, support and resources. Children have varying levels of health and abilities, many struggling with behavioral and emotional challenges. It’s fine to be proud of your child, but be sensitive of others.

We’ll all “Like” that.

For more details and registration visit

www.fsmtheatre.ca 18

Island Parent Magazine

Tim Collins is a writer and freelance journalist living and working in Victoria.

IslandParent.ca

Andrea Turner

Space to Grow S

ometimes it feels as though my five-yearold son and two-year-old daughter are constantly at war. I try to be patient and consider all the information I’ve read in those parenting books. If that doesn’t work, I can feel almost too paralyzed to act, afraid that I will get it wrong. Eventually the kids will stop fighting and I’ll wonder, did they stop fighting because of all my tactics, or did they simply stop fighting because the issue played itself out despite my desperate scrambling to say or do the “right” or “perfect” thing?

I bet it’s the latter. Which makes me wonder: what exactly is my role as a parent if children are eventually going to figure things out for themselves anyway?

I’ve learned that there is no one-size-fitsall approach to parenting; different kids respond to different approaches. Our job as parents is to learn the rhythm and flow of our children and tailor our parenting to meet each child’s needs. To that end, it helps to establish an environment of trust and support so that children feel safe to take risks. It is from these risks that children often learn.

As parents, we can model the values that we want to cultivate in our children.

However, we cannot force them to adopt these values. We need to be in tune with our children to know when to challenge or teach them and when to back off and let them learn and explore for themselves—all while being ready to support them if they stumble. Parenting is like a dance where you try to follow your child’s lead, and when you learn your child’s subtle nuances, you can

IslandParent.ca

dance gloriously together. When the music changes you may step on one another’s toes from time to time, you may need to adjust a little, find the flow again, and then you can both take off again across the dance floor finding each other’s rhythm together.

For this to happen, though, you have to let go. For me, and from what I gather from talking to other parents, this is the big challenge. So how do you let go?

You trust. Trust yourself. And trust your child.

Trust yourself to have shown your child how to be a good person by modelling it yourself. Of course, we are not always perfect and this is good to model for our children, too. If our children can be okay with being imperfect, this is a success. Mom and Dad sometimes make mistakes, Mom and Dad are sometimes sad, mad, frustrated, and Mom and Dad do not know everything.

This one shocked my son. When he found this out recently, he said “Oh so even when you’re big you don’t know everything?” I told him there was a lot that I didn’t know.

His reply? “Then I want to be a GIANT!” His thinking: The bigger you are the more you know.

Trust your child and his or her ability to handle a situation. Trust that your child is a good person and that he or she will be okay.

As Kahlil Gibran says in his poem “On Children,” “Your children are not your children. They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing itself. They come through you but not from you and though they are with you yet they belong not to you. You may

give them your love but not your thoughts, for they have their own thoughts. You may house their bodies but not their souls…”

We cannot control our children because they are not ours to control, as if they are our possessions. They will be the people that they will be and we need to let go of any particular image of who we want them to become because it goes against their very nature. If we force them into a particular mould, we may engage in a never-ending battle or they may comply and desperately try to be the kid we want them to be, suppressing their inner yearnings and likely not feeling too good about themselves in the process. That’s not to say we let our kids run wild with no boundaries. We can still gently love and support them with boundaries that help them become compassionate and productive individuals but we need to give them the space to grow into the people they truly are.

We can help them do that by really listening to them and nurturing them. What do their words, actions and emotions really tell us about them? What are their unique personality traits and gifts? What are their deep desires and needs?

I am not suggesting anything definitive, like a prescription telling parents what they should do to nurture their child’s essence.

I think as parents that we need to let go of “shoulds”—they often leave us feeling guilty. Ultimately we know what it is our child wants and needs, which is unique to them. And if we don’t know what it is they want or need that is okay. We just need to slow down, sit with them and really listen.

Andrea Turner is a registered clinical hypnotherapist, and owner of Transformative Self.

She can be reached at transformativeself@ gmail.com or transformativeself.com.

March 2016 19

Enchanted Fables Princess Parties

O

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E Invite a Princess to your next event!

The place online where parents and grandparents get information about their community for their family:

enchantedfables.com

Read current and past issues of Island Parent Magazine.

Visit our Marketplace to find businesses, programs and services that cater to the little person in your life.

Looking for that special something you had when you were a kid? Check out our classified ads.

Want to see what’s up today or this weekend?

View our calendar of events.

Whether it’s dance lessons, parenting workshops, fun days and festivals, what’s happening at your local rec centre or community events—Island Parent Online has it all!

Maybe you are looking for something to engage your mind or perhaps need a little bit of advice. Well we have that too on our community forum.

Receive Island Parent e-newsletter for updates and exclusive contests.

You can also enter our monthly and photo contests.

Come be part of our community at

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Island Parent Magazine

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250-380-2442 March 2016 21

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Jerri Carson

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pring is just around the corner! The clocks go forward one hour on March 13 as we go into spring, which adds an extra hour of daylight and means children can spend more time outdoors.

Jump-rope activities are the perfect solution for getting your kids active and playing outside. Jumping rope has physical benefits in addition to its appeal for playtime. It is healthy and active with the added bonus of singing or chanting as well as learning about rhythm and beat.

Young children love the challenge of trying to jump and land over a rope. Even children as young as three years of age can learn the movement patterns involved in turning the rope and jumping at the appropriate time. By age six, most children can turn the rope and jump several times in a row. Children that are not yet ready to jump over the rope should be encouraged to simply step over the rope. Jumping will come later.

For very young children, there are various games with simple rhymes that will encourage them to jump. One easy jumping activity for preschoolers is Snake in the Grass. Rope holders stoop down and wiggle the rope on the floor. Jumpers try to jump over the rope and not touch it as it moves like a snake. A singing rhyme for this jumping activity is sung to the tune of The Farmer in the Dell.

The snake is in the grass.

The snake is in the grass.

S-s-s-s-s The snake is in the grass.

Or another fun rhyme to chant while wiggling the rope on the ground is: Jelly in the dish, Jelly in the dish, Wiggle-waggle, Wiggle-waggle, Jelly in the dish.

One favourite jumping activity for preschoolers is called Hickety Pickety Pop. Two players hold the rope loosely, a few inches off the floor and another player jumps over the rope and back. Holders raise the rope a couple inches each time the jumper clears it while chanting “Hickety Pickety Pop, how many times before I stop?”

Another beginner jump rope activity involves jumping over a rope swinging gently at floor level. While jumping over the rope, the players sing, “Blue Bells, Cockle Shells, easy ivy over” or “Wash the dishes, dry the dishes, have a cup of tea. Don’t forget the sugar, a-one, a-two, a-three.”

For older children who have mastered jumping, there are many excellent jingles to sing while two players are turning the rope.

One fun jingle to try is: Apples pears, peaches and plums, Tell me when your birthday comes.

Singers say the months of the year and the jumper jumps out at their birthday month.

Experienced jumpers can add variety by adding fancy moves and trying different styles such as double Dutch. One favourite jingle for advanced jumpers is Teddy Bear: Teddy Bear Teddy Bear Turn around Teddy Bear Teddy Bear touch the ground Teddy Bear Teddy Bear turn off the light Teddy Bear Teddy Bear Jump Out of sight!

An excellent book to reference is Anna Banana: 101 Jump Rope Rhymes by Joanna Cole. This informative book has over 100 traditional rhymes such as counting rhymes, red-hot pepper rhymes, and fortune-telling rhymes.

Skipping is just plain fun. It’s a great way to keep the family active all year long, as well as an activity that everybody can enjoy.

Jerri Carson is a primary music teacher for SD #61. She is a member of the CRD Arts Advisory Council. Jerri plays the cello in the Victoria Conservatory Cello Orchestra.

IslandParent.ca

March 2016

Generously Sponsored by and

Family Calendar For calendar updates throughout the month visit IslandParent.ca THURS 3

MON 7

FRI 11

Good Morning Storytime at Sidney/North Saanich Branch Library. Bring your littlest ones to the library for stories, songs, rhymes, and lots of movement. Ages 0-5. Drop in.

10:15-11:15am. sidney@virl.bc.ca or phone 250-656-0944.

Baby Chat at Juan de Fuca Branch Library.

Stay after drop-in Baby Time to learn about baby care and other child development topics from Island Health practitioners. Drop in, space permitting. For babies 0-15 months and parent or caregiver. 11-11:30am. 250-940GVPL (4875). gvpl.ca.

Extreme Easter Scavenger Hunt at Panorama Recreation. An extreme teen event that includes plenty of egg-citing prizes. For 11-16 year olds.

5:30-7:30pm. 250-656-7271.

SAT 5 Community Yard Sale and Silent Auction at Lakehill Co-op Preschool. Bid on dozens of goods and services generously donated by local businesses, engage in the fun, and donate towards a great cause. A multi-family community yard sale will also take place with freshly baked goods and refreshments, and a bouncy castle. A fun day for the whole family. 10am-1pm. Auction closes at noon. 3821 Cedar Hill X-Rd. 250-477-4141.

Mompreneur Monday at Victoria Public Market will celebrate and support the number of talented moms in Victoria who are juggling kids and running a homegrown business. This craft fair style event runs from 11am-3pm, and showcases the creations of talented local Mompreneurs. Vendors will be set up in the center of the market and selling everything from handmade artwork, accessories and jewellery, children’s clothing, toys, sweet treats, and more. downtownvictoria.ca.

SUN 6

THURS 10

What’s Up? Who’s Out at Mill Hill Regional Park. Spring is here, and it’s time to head for the hills. Follow a CRD Regional Parks naturalist up Mill Hill looking for early signs of spring along the way. Meet at the information kiosk in the parking lot off Atkins Ave at 1pm.

5+ years. BC Transit #53. 250-478-3344. crd.bc.ca/parks.

DigiLab at Esquimalt Branch Library. DigiLab newbies welcome. DigiLab experts welcome.

Basically, if you want to volunteer, this is the time and place to find out everything you need to know to make your program happen.

Develop leadership skills, earn volunteer hours and use your creativity and tech skills to help other teens use the new mobile DigiLab. If you would like to volunteer, you must attend a training session and complete a Teen Volunteer Referral Form. For ages 13-18. 2:30-4pm.

Register at gvpl.ca or call 250-940-GVPL (4875) for more information.

24 Island Parent Magazine

SAT 12 Rascally Raccoons at Devonian Regional Park.

Join a CRD Regional Parks naturalist for a “day in the life” of these little rascals. Meet at the information kiosk in the parking lot off William Head Rd at 1pm. All ages. BC Transit # 54 or #55. 250-478-3344. crd.bc.ca/parks.

SUN 13 Tracks and Traces at Elk/Beaver Lake Regional Park. Become a nature super sleuth. Join a CRD Regional Parks naturalist to explore the evidence and investigate clues left behind by animals. Meet at the Elk/Beaver Lake Nature Centre off the main parking lot at 1pm. 8+ years. BC Transit #70 or #75. crd.bc.ca/parks.

250-478-3344.

Alice in Wonderland Skate at Panorama Recreation. Adventure down the rabbit hole for a truly enchanting skate. Stop by the concourse before and after for your chance to meet Alice and her friends. 1-2pm.

MON 14 Mystery Creature at Witty’s Lagoon Regional Park. Solve riddles and find clues hidden along the trail with a CRD Regional Parks naturalist.

IslandParent.ca

At the end, piece the puzzle together to discover who the mystery creature is. Meet in the Tower Point parking lot off Olympic View Drive at 1pm. 5+ years. BC Transit #54 or #55. crd. bc.ca/parks. 250-478-3344.

WED 16 Gruffalo Puppet Day at Juan de Fuca Branch Library. What’s a Gruffalo? Find out while you watch a Gruffalo puppet play, listen to a story, and have fun with other Gruffalo activities. 10:30-11:30am. For ages 5-8. Register at gvpl.ca or call 250-940-GVPL (4875) for more information.

Buzz About Bees Francis/King Regional Park.

A honey of a program fit for the royalty of the insect world. What’s the buzz about bees—are they really good dancers? Come for bee songs, bee crafts, and some bee spit to taste. You’ll bee amazed, bee enchanted, and bee happy.

Meet at the Francis/King Nature Centre off Munn Rd. 11am-2pm drop in. All ages. crd.bc.ca/parks. 250-478-3344.

Baby Chat at Bruce Hutchison Branch Library.

See MON 7 for details. Drop in, space permitting. For babies 0-15 months and parent or caregiver. 11:45am-12:15pm. 250-940-GVPL (4875). gvpl.ca.

THURS 17 March Break Puppet Show at Sidney/North Saanich Branch Library. It’s time for some fractured fairy tale fun. Join the librarians for a puppet show loosely based on a well-known fairy tale. Which fairy tale is the show based on? Come to the show and see if you can guess. Suitable for all ages. Everyone welcome.

10:30-11:15am. sidney@virl.bc.ca or phone 250-656-0944.

DigiLab at Esquimalt Branch Library. Have fun while learning a new craft or building skills. Meet new people who are interested in art and technology, just like you. The library will provide the art supplies, technology and instructions, and you provide the inspiration. For ages 13-18. 3:30-5pm. Register at

gvpl.ca or call 250-940-GVPL (4875) for more information.

FRI 18 Family Forest Tea Party at Francis/King Regional Park. Here’s an opportunity to bring the whole family along for a tea party in the woods. Join a CRD Regional Parks naturalist for an interpretive tea tasting featuring some of our local plants. A short guided walk to see some of the plants growing in their native habitat will precede the tea sampling. 5+ years. $10/family + GST. Pre-registration required

by March 16. 250-478-3344. crd.bc.ca/parks.

SAT 19 Salmon Saturday at Charter Interpretive Centre. There’s something fishy going on. Drop by between 11am and 2pm to check out the demonstration hatchery and the displays at the Centre with a CRD Regional Parks naturalist. Meet at Charters Interpretive Centre. 5+ years. 2895 Sooke River Road. 250-478-3344. crd.bc.ca/parks.

SAT 19 & SUN 20 Tillicum Lego Mania Challenge at Tillicum Centre. Over 100 contestants, ages 5-14 years, will be showcasing their Lego masterpieces for a chance to win Lego prizes. Meet Lego Certified Professional, Robin Sather, and help him build a giant Lego Mosaic. Children under 14 who are not contestants will have a chance to try out the mini-build area. The Victoria Lego Users Group (VicLUG) will also be on hand with some of their fun Lego creations. Prizes will be awarded for top entries on Sunday at 2pm, with additional prizes during Lego Trivia Sunday at 2pm. tillicumkids.com.

Fossil Fair at Swan Lake Nature House. Who lived here millions of years ago? Dinosaurs, trilobites, ammonites, enormous clams and sharks lived in the ancient tropical coral seas and palm tree forests that covered Vancouver Island. Paleontologists will share their personal fossil discoveries including many from this past year. Bring your family and your own

Wonderful, Powerful PULSES

TM

fossils for identification. Kids can follow a scavenger hunt, or make fossil and dinosaur rubbings. Admission by donation. 10am4pm. 3873 Swan Lake Rd. 250-479-0211. swanlake.bc.ca.

SUN 20 Ugh! A Slug! at Mill Hill Regional Park. Join a CRD Regional Parks naturalist to peek under fallen logs and leaves in search of one of nature’s best recyclers. Learn a slug song, do a slug dance, and discover your slug power.

Meet at the information kiosk in the parking lot off Atkins Ave at 1pm. All ages. BC Transit #53. 250-478-3344. crd.bc.ca/parks.

Coast Capital Free Skate at Panorama Recreation. Bring the whole family for an afternoon of fun on the ice. Enjoy music and games, and even get skating tips from an instructor. Don’t forget to wear your helmet for a chance to win great prizes. Skate rentals are free, too.

1-2:20pm.

MON 21 Special Cherry Blossom Storytime at Sidney/ North Saanich Branch Library. It’s cherry time. Listen to a story about a magical Sakura (Japanese Cherry) tree and then stay and make your own Japanese crafts to take home.

Thanks to the Victoria Cultural Society. The crafts are best suited for children 5 years and older. 10:30-11:30am. Please register by email sidney@virl.bc.ca or phone 250-656-0944.

Freekeh & Chickpea Salad

Pulses are the edible seeds of plants in the legume family and include dried peas, beans, lentils and chickpeas.

Packed with protein, fibre, folate and more, their growth has a positive impact on the environment. Whether you’re looking to create a meatless meal or just increase the nutrients in a salad, give pulses a try!

Find this recipe and more pulse ideas on our website.

Customer Care: 1 800 667 8280 • thriftyfoods.com /recipes

IslandParent.ca

March 2016 25

Marsh Madness at Swan Lake Nature House.

Games, crafts, songs, and hands-on activities; fun for the whole family. Noon-3pm drop in event. 3873 Swan Lake Rd. 250-479-0211. swanlake.bc.ca.

Emergency Preparedness Workshop at Victoria City Hall. Learn about the hazards that can affect Victoria, what to include in your home emergency kit, what you can do to minimize injury and protect your home from an earthquake, and how to reunite with loved ones after a disaster. An emergency kit will also come in handy in the event of a power outage or winter storm. 1-3pm. To register, email vema@victoria.ca or call 250-920-3373.

PrepareVictoria.ca.

Stories on Fern Street. The Victoria Storytellers Guild welcomes you to hear and tell stories. For people who love to tell stories, for people who love to listen, for people of all ages. Tea and goodies. Doors open at 7:15pm, stories start at 7:30pm. 1831 Fern St (park on Begbie). $5; $3/students. 250-477-7044. victoriastorytellers.org.

TUES 22 The Amazing Race at Elk/Beaver Lake Regional Park. Challenge yourself on this skill-testing and fun jaunt through the forest. Drop by any time between 11am and 2pm and get the scoop from a CRD Regional Parks naturalist. Meet at the information kiosk in the Beaver Lake parking lot. All ages. BC Transit #70 or #72.

250-478-3344. crd.bc.ca/parks.

Super Snakes at Swan Lake Nature House.

Games, crafts, songs, and hands-on activities; fun for the whole family. Features live snakes.

Noon-3pm drop in event. 3873 Swan Lake Rd. 250-479-0211. swanlake.bc.ca.

DigiLab at Esquimalt Branch Library. See THURS 17 for details. For ages 13-18. 3:305pm. Register at gvpl.ca or call 250-940-GVPL (4875) for more information.

26 Island Parent Magazine

WED 23 Wild About Flowers at Swan Lake Nature House. Games, crafts, songs, and hands-on activities; fun for the whole family. There will be a hike to Christmas Hill, so be sure to wear sturdy shoes and bring a water bottle.

Noon-3pm drop in event. 3873 Swan Lake Rd. 250-479-0211. swanlake.bc.ca.

Emergency Preparedness Workshop at Oaklands Community Centre. See MON 21 for details. 7-9pm. To register, email vema@victoria. ca or call 250-920-3373. PrepareVictoria.ca.

THURS 24 Spring Fling at Francis/King Regional Park.

Come and explore the sights, sounds and smells of spring. Join in the celebration with CRD Regional Parks naturalists for exhibits, crafts, activities—fun for the entire family. There will be guided walks at 11:15am and 1pm. Meet at the Francis/King Nature Centre off Munn Rd. All ages. 250-478-3344. crd.bc.ca/parks.

Birds of Prey at Swan Lake Nature House.

Games, crafts, songs, and hands-on activities; fun for the whole family. Features live birds.

Noon-3pm drop in event. 3873 Swan Lake Rd. 250-479-0211. swanlake.bc.ca.

Gruffalo Puppet Day at Esquimalt Branch Library. See WED 16 for details. 2:30-3:30pm.

For ages 5-8. Register at gvpl.ca or call 250940-GVPL (4875) for more information.

SAT 26 Easter Egg Hunt at Beckwith Park. Bouncy castles, craft station, carnival games, roaming superheroes and Star Wars characters, face painting, entertainment, global music with DJ Hinga. Saanich police and fire vehicles on site. Coffee/popcorn station. Egg hunt starts at 11am with 3 age categories. Visit from the Easter Bunny. Raffle baskets and BBQ ($6 for burger/hot dog/chips/drink or veggie option).

Rain or shine. No pre-registration required.

10am-1pm. $5/child aged 13 and under, adults free. info@signsofhopeinafrica.org.

Easter Egg Hunt at Tillicum Elementary School. Face painting, prizes, crafts and more. Free. Sponsored by Lighthouse Church.

10:30am.

The Best Nest at Francis/King Regional Park.

Bring your little ones to follow some feathered friends on a scavenger hunt through the forest with a CRD Regional Parks naturalist. Learn how to build a nest and experience life as a small bird. Meet at the Francis/King Nature Centre off Munn Rd at 1pm. 8 years and under.

250-478-3344. crd.bc.ca/parks.

SUN 27 Easter Egg Hunt at the Pool at Panorama Recreation. Come for some Easter fun. Easter egg hunt, as well as themed games and prizes for the whole family. 1:30-3pm.

Easter at Victoria Public Market from noon2pm features lots of fun activities for the kids: crafts, face painting, live kids’ music by Rob Gillespie and a visit from the Easter Bunny himself. downtownvictoria.ca Wonder Sunday at the Royal BC Museum.

Startups! We ask the question- How do food stores and farms get started anyway? And if you were to design your own food store or farm, what would it look like? While creating your own ideas, meet community members that have had inventive ideas about food production and are seeing these ideas through.

1-3pm. royalbcmuseum.bc.ca/events/calendar.

WED 30 Coast Capital Free Swim at Panorama Recreation. Bring the whole family for a night of active fun. The waterslide and climbing wall will be open for the free, everyone welcome skate. 6-7:30pm.

THURS 31 Baby Chat at Saanich Centennial Branch Library. See MON 7 for details. Drop in, space permitting. For babies 0-15 months and parent or caregiver. Noon-12:30pm. 250-940-GVPL (4875). gvpl.ca.

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ONGOING BABIES, TODDLERS & PRESCHOOL Drop-in Storytimes at the Greater Victoria Public Library. Caregivers are welcome and encouraged to participate. Storytimes are free and drop-in. Please come early to find a space.

For a complete schedule of drop-in programs, visit gvpl.ca or call 250-940-GVPL (4875) for more information.

CHILDREN Volunteer Opportunities for Tweens at the Greater Victoria Public Library. Are you a tween looking for a volunteer opportunity?

Do you like working with children and enjoy stories? GVPL’s Story Buddies program provides an opportunity to volunteer and work with kids. To find out more, visit gvpl.ca/ about-us/work-with-us/tween-volunteers or call 250-940-GVPL (4875).

Baseball and Softball Registration on the Saanich Peninsula. Fees include 8 indoor clinics at Panorama Recreation starting January 16th, Spring Ball from April through June, uniforms, team picture, and trophy. Visit pbsa.ca for details.

Toddler Art Drop-in at Burnside Gorge Community Centre. Explore your creative side.

Each week features a different craft designed

with the preschooler in mind. Smocks and soap provided. Creative activities can be messy, so please dress children appropriately. Parent participation required. 9:30-10:30am. $1/child.

contest rules, and online entry form, see gvpl. ca/teenwritingcontest. For more information, email teens@gvpl.ca. Contest runs online from January 29-March 29.

YOUTH

FAMILIES

Volunteer Opportunities for Teens at the Greater Victoria Public Library. The GVPL has great volunteer opportunities for teens.

For more information, visit gvpl.ca/about-us/ work-with-us/teen-volunteers.

Young Parent Drop-in at the YM/YWCA. The Y Young Moms Program hosts a free breakfast and drop-in for young parents in the community. Come enjoy a hot meal, socialize with other young parents, enjoy a kids’ craft, let your little one explore the fully equipped playroom, or have a look in the ‘free store’ for gently used children’s items and household supplies. 10am-noon. Call 250-382-1004 for more information.

GVPL Teen Slam Poetry Team at Central Branch Public Library. Interested in spoken word poetry? Come for regular coaching with past City of Victoria Youth Poet Laureate Zoe Duhaime and experiment with words and rhythm, then watch or participate in the Victorious Voices High School Slam Championships. For ages 13-18. Wednesdays, 4:30-5:30pm, February 10-March 30. Register at gvpl.ca or call 250-940-GVPL (4875) for more information.

Teen Writing Contest at the Greater Victoria Public Library. Enter your original poem, short story, or something in the “random” category.

Create something new, or polish up something written for a school assignment. If your entry is selected by the judging panel, you will win a gift certificate for the store of your choice, up to $100 for first prize! For Grades 7-12 and home learners of equivalent age. For details,

Recyclistas Bicycle Repair Classes at Recyclistas Bike Shop. Affordable classes twice weekly. Learn how to safely and effectively fix, maintain and rebuild bicycles. Thursdays 4-7pm, and Saturdays 1-4pm. $25/adults; $13/ youth 10-18. Pre-register by calling 250-4188867. recyclistas.ca.

Guided Birdwalks at Swan Lake Christmas Hill Nature Sanctuary. Bring your binoculars and walking shoes and meet in the parking lot for this informal and informative walk around the lake area. 9am. By donation. 3873 Swan Lake Rd. swanlake.bc.ca.•

Cover Photo Contest For the 2016 Family Summer Guide or Kids’ Guide to Victoria & Vancouver Island Send us a colourful, clear photo of your kids or family enjoying a summer moment on Vancouver Island, and it may end up on the cover of this year’s Family Summer Guide or Kids’ Guide.

1st Prize: Main cover photo on the Family Summer Guide and $100 Gift Certificate to the business of your choice on Vancouver Island. Runners up: five or more runners up will receive two IMAX tickets and their photos will be featured on the cover of either the Family Summer Guide or Kids’ Guide.

Only digital submissions will be accepted. Send a maximum of three photos of medium or higher resolution (preferably 2–3MB).

Photos must be colour shots of children or families in Vancouver Island locations. Contest is open to Vancouver Island residents only.

Entry deadline is Tuesday, April 12, 2016; winners will be notified by email by Monday, May 16. Winning photos become the property of Island Parent Magazine.

Send entries to: editor@islandparent.ca

IslandParent.ca

March 2016 27

Spring Camp for Kids

Around the Island Visit IslandParent.ca for these and other events and resources for families from Cowichan Valley north to Campbell River and west to Tofino

March 14–18, 2016 Ever thought about introducing your child to the wonderful world of horses in a safe and fun learning environment? Echo Ridge Stables is the place to go!

Laura Fanning is an Equine Canada certified Coach and mother of four who specializes in teaching beginners and young children. She loves to share her passion for horses with others by creating a positive and productive game-based learning environment.

Lesson plans are designed based on the age specific FUNdamentals learning stages outlined in Sport Canada’s Long-term Athletic Development Program.

Camp activities include daily rides (various disciplines covered throughout the week in “theme” days), stable management, crafts, in-hand and under saddle games.

Daily healthy snacks included.

Echo Ridge Stables

echoridgestables.ca echoridgestables@mail.com 250-857-6710

TUES 1 Glow in the Dark Skate at Frank Crane Arena.

Skate in an atmosphere of dimmed lighting and special effects. Regular admission. Glow necklaces available for $2. 250-756-5200.

FRI 4 Nanaimo Community Home Learners (NCHL) Monthly Meet-up at Oliver Woods Community Centre. Resource library, gym time, and parent support. $5 drop-in fee/family or $20 year-long membership. nanaimocommunityhomelearners.org.

SUN 6 Parksville Lion’s and Save-On-Foods Free Family Skate at Oceanside Arena, Parksville.

The last free family skate of the season. Free family skating Sundays. Free admission and skate rentals. Children must be accompanied by an adult 19 years or older. 12:15-1:45pm.

250-248-3252. rdn.bc.ca/recreation.

TUES 8

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Travis Warren 250-886-2141 travismwarren@gmail.com 28 Island Parent Magazine

Dad’s Night Out: Free Skate Night at Oceanside Place Arena. Dads, bring the kids and enjoy a free skate together on the pond. Sponsored

by Building Learning Together. 6:30-7:30pm.

250-248-3252. rdn.bc.ca/recreation.

TUES 15 Twisted and Tie-Dyed Tuesdays at Nanaimo Aquatic Centre. Wear your tie-dye while playing games and making crafts with the lifeguards. 1-3pm. 250-756-5200.

Glow in the Dark Skate at Frank Crane Arena.

Skate in an atmosphere of dimmed lighting and special effects. Regular admission. Glow necklaces available for $2. 250-756-5200.

FRI 18 Freaked Out Fridays at Nanaimo Aquatic Centre. Wear your favourite scary mask, or make one at the pool. 1-3pm. 250-756-5200.

SUN 20 Water Day at Bowen Park Complex. Interac-

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tive booths, workshops, speakers, kids activities, artists, food concession and live music.

Celebrate water! Attend and you could win a rain barrel. Find out more at teamwatersmart. ca. Call to pre-register for workshops 250756-5200. 500 Bowen Rd.

Tues 22

• Swivel brings baby to you for close, safe sleep

premiere swivel sleeper

Twisted and Tie-Dyed Tuesdays at Nanaimo Aquatic Centre. Wear your tie-dye while playing games and making crafts with the lifeguards. 1-3pm. 250-756-5200.

FRI 25

Gliders & Furniture

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Also available: Essentia & Luxe Plus models

For All Your Your Baby Baby Needs…

Needs… New, We Also Do&Rentals!

For Used Rentals Serving the Infants • Toddlers • Youth • Parents & Grandparents of Victoria

The Kiddies Store 3045–C Douglas St. (Rear) 386-2229 www.tjskids.com

Finlayson St.

s St.

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• Soothing made simple. Includes 3 lullabies, 3 nature and womb sounds, 2 levels of vibration, nightlight and nursing timer, each with 30 minute auto-shutoff.

Dougla

Freaked Out Fridays at Nanaimo Aquatic Centre. Wear your favourite scary mask, or make one at the pool. 1-3pm. 250-756-5200.

• Rotates to help you easily get in and out of bed • Stable base adjusts to fit beds 24" to 34" high. Ideal for small spaces, requires only 32" (81 cm) clearance.

THURS 24 Youth Employment Workshop at Parksville Career Centre. Enjoy a slice of pizza while attending this workshop focused on securing local seasonal employment. Participants will have the opportunity to tailor their resumes and get the inside scoop on gaining employment with Oceanside businesses. Free with preregistration. 9am-3pm. Phone 250-248-3252 to pre-register. rdn.bc.ca/recreation.

• Easy to tend to baby from bed

Larch St.

T.J.’S

(Under Sleep Country in the REAR)

PRESCHOOL Mornings with LaFF at the Aggie. Staff and participants create play-based learning stations to explore and enjoy. Bring food to share & make a healthy snack together while making new friends. Monday to Friday, 9:30amnoon. $2 suggested donation per family. familyandfriends.ca.

Family Storytime at Cowichan Library, Duncan. Bring the whole family for stories, songs, rhymes and fun. For ages 0-5. Tuesdays 10:3011:30am. 2687 James St. krumohr@virl.bc.ca.

FAMILY Drop-in Science Studio at Departure Bay Eco School. At Nanaimo Science and Sustainability Society’s Science studio, kids are encouraged to explore the many interactive displays and activities. Activities include: 8 foot marble wall, 2,000 KEVA blocks, kid-friendly microscopes, wind tunnels, a high-powered air field, math puzzles, sign-out activities, and more. For safety purposes, children under 16 must be accompanied by an adult. $4/child; adults free.

Tuesday-Thursday 10am-noon; Thursdays 3-5pm; Saturdays 9am-noon. Schedule subject to change, so please check nanaimoscience.org for most current schedule.

Lions Free Skate at Frank Crane Arena. Every Sunday noon-1:30pm. 250-756-5200.•

IslandParent.ca

Irish Cream L atté!

February 29 - March 27, 2016

Serious Coffee locations can be found throughout Vancouver Island and in Powell River �o �nd one near you go to� seriouscoffee�co� March 2016 29

Small Changes, One Meal at a Time Healthy Families, Happy Families

‘Same Day’ Infant & Children’s Immunization Clinics Esquimalt Health Unit 530 Fraser St 250-519-5311 Call-in Time for Booking a Same Day Appointment

Friday, 9:00 – 11:00 am Clinic Day & Time

Friday, 1:00 – 4:00 pm

Peninsula Health Unit 2170 Mt. Newton Cross Rd 250-544-2400 Call-in Time for Booking a Same Day Appointment

Monday, 9:00 – 11:00 am Clinic Day & Time

Monday, 1:00 – 4:00 pm

Saanich Health Unit 3995 Quadra St, 2nd Floor 250-519-5100 Call-in Time for Booking a Same Day Appointment

Tuesday, 9:00 – 11:00 am Clinic Day & Time

Tuesday, 2:00 – 6:00 pm

Victoria Health Unit 1947 Cook St 250-388-2200 Call-in Time for Booking a Same Day Appointment

Friday, 9:00 – 11:00 am Clinic Day & Time

Friday, 1:00 – 4:00 pm

Please Note: Availability of Appointments May Vary 30 Island Parent Magazine

S

mall changes can help your family to eat well and lead healthier lives for a lifetime. For Nutrition Month 2016, Dietitians of Canada encourages families to make small changes to improve their health, one meal a time.

Get Ready!

When it comes to health, it can take time for changes to become routine. Here are some tips to help you and your family get started: • Focus on one change at a time. For example, make a goal of eating more vegetables and fruit. Making too many changes at once can be overwhelming.

• Create SMART goals. “SMART” stands for goals that are Specific, Measurable, Action-oriented, Realistic and Timely. For example, make a goal of eating at least one serving of fruit or vegetables at each meal or snack time for at least the next week.

• Set goals and make changes as a family. It’s easier to be successful when you have support from others around you. For example, ask your family for ideas on how you can all eat more fruit and vegetables.

• Track your progress. Use a journal or a mobile app, like Eattracker.ca, to monitor your progress and build awareness about your eating patterns.

• Make healthy eating the easy choice.

The places where we live, work and play can influence our decisions. Consider your personal environment, and what you can do to make it easier to reach your goals.

For example, if choosing healthy snacks is a challenge for you, keep fresh fruit in a bowl close by.

Quality Counts!

Preparing meals at home is the best way to control what goes into the food that you and your family eat. Yet research shows that Canadians are spending less time making meals from scratch, and are relying more on pre-prepared meals and convenient foods.

Pre-made and restaurant meals tend to have more calories, sugar, sodium, saturated fat and less fibre than foods made at home.

Families who eat homemade meals tend to

eat healthier, including more vegetables, fruits and whole grains. Here are a few ways to make quality count: • Make more meals at home. Try to make at least one more meal at home each week.

Have family members help with planning, shopping and cooking.

Healthy Families, Happy Families C hild Y outh & Family Pu b lic Health

JANE BARCLAY, JANEt Krenz & JUSTINE WARDLE

• Eat more vegetables and fruit. Add at least one more serving of vegetables and fruit every day. For example, top your morning cereal with half a cup of berries or enjoy a bowl of salad with dinner.

• Choose more whole grains. Barley, brown rice, oats, quinoa and wild rice are rich in fibre and other nutrients. Try to replace at least half of your grain products with whole grain each day.

Prioritize Portion Size!

Over the years, portion sizes both in and out of the home have increased a lot. Large portions can lead to excess calorie intake and weight gain. Unfortunately, we are often unaware of how portion sizes affect how much we eat. To reduce portions: • Use smaller plates and bowls.

• Watch out for snack foods. It’s easy to overeat if you eat right from a package.

Choose single serving packages or portion snacks into a smaller bowl before eating.

• Ask for smaller portions at restaurants or split a meal between two people. Stop eating when you feel comfortably full, and take any leftovers home.

• Cut down on sugary drinks. If you regularly drink sweetened beverages, such as pop, juice or coffee, switch to a smaller size or choose them less often. Switching from a 750 ml bottle to a 355 ml of pop each day will save you over 9 kg of added sugar each year! Try drinking water in place of pop.

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Try Something New! Taste is the number-one reason Canadians choose the foods they do. To make lasting changes, it’s important that meals and snacks are still flavourful and satisfying. Try these ideas to prepare delicious meals: • Be bold with flavour. Spices, garlic, ginger, citrus and herbs can give life to your family’s favourite meals.

• Enjoy more meatless meals. Meat alternatives, like beans, lentils, eggs and tofu, are good substitutes for meat in many recipes. Add them to soups, casseroles or ABOUT DID YOU KNOW? pasta dishes to add variety.

Who: Boys and Girls (age 4-18) Affordable team sport for all ages When: April 2 - June 20, 2016 Fun and social • Experiment with new recipes and cuiWhere: University of Victoria Develops eye-hand coordination sines. Use the Dietitians of Canada mobile What: Fundamental movements, skill Complementary cross-training sport app, Cookspiration.ca, to find delicious and development, games and FUN! especially for soccer & ice hockey easy recipes, day or night.

If your child is hesitant to try new foods, Sign up Now! VictoriaJuniorFieldHockey.ca don’t fret. Don’t force or bribe children to eat—it may actually make them less likely to try new foods. The best way to get children 2121 Cedar Hill Cross Road (by entrance to UVic) to eat a variety of foods is to sit down and eat meals with them.

Openings forHill 2013–2014 2121 Cedar Cross RoadClasses! (by entrance to UVic)

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Emmanuel Preschool

Emmanuel Preschool

Make it Stick!

The challenges of everyday life can get in the way and derail even the best-laid plans.

Planning for lapses and challenges will help you and your family to stay on track when roadblocks get in the way. Here are a few tips for families: • Plan ahead. Set time aside to plan, shop and prepare meals and snacks in advance.

• Eating on the go. Having a supply of nutritious snacks on hand is helpful when you are in a pinch. Fresh fruit, nuts and seeds are healthy and easy to grab and go.

• Practice mindful eating. Eating while distracted, or due to stress or boredom, can lead to overeating. During meal times, turn off the TV, phone and other screens so you can enjoy your meal and company.

For other tips, recipes and healthy eating during Nutrition Month, visit the Dietitians of Canada website (dietitians.ca). Registered Dietitians at HealthLink BC also provides free nutrition and healthy eating information over the telephone for BC residents.

Call toll-free 8-1-1 and ask to speak to a dietitian.

Children through ininclusive, our all inclusive, Children learnlearn through play in play our all non-denominational Christian preschool. non-denominational Christian preschool.

Great facility; outdoor play area a gym rainy for day play!

Great facility; outdoor playand area andfor a gym Two teachers with ECE certification plus assistant teachers to day play!

Twochildren. teachers with ECE certification helprainy with special needs plus an assistant help with special needs A competent and caringteacher teachingtoteam! children. A competent and caring teaching team!

Opportunities: Class Options for 2016–2017: Mon / Wed / Fri morning class Mon/Wed/Fri morning class Tues / Thurs morning class Tues/Thurs morning class 5 mornings a week

5 mornings a week Phone 250-598-0573 Phone 250-598-0573 preschool@emmanuelvictoria.ca preschool@emmanuelvictoria.ca www.emmanuelpreschool.ca

www.emmanuelpreschool.ca

West-Mont Montessori Accepting Elementary Registrations

Jane Barclay, Janet Krenz and Justine Wardle are Registered Dietitians with Island Health’s Public Health Program in South Vancouver Island.

West-Mont Montessori School 4075 Metchosin Rd, Victoria t: 250.474.2626 e: info@west-mont.ca w: west-mont.ca IslandParent.ca

March 2016 31

The Work of Family Fun

M

First Annual

Pregnancy to Pre-K Expo Saturday & Sunday, March 19 & 20 at Beban Park

40+ Local and National Vendors Baby Crawling Contest Two Appearances by BOBS AND LOLO The incomparable music of “The BIG MESS” Supervised Gymnastics Corner and much, much, more!

In support of Nanaimo’s Child Development Center! Support their cause, and have some fun at this one of a kind, one stop shopping experience!

Tickets: $10/day or $12/weekend, kids under 12 FREE!

Info: prairiecoastproductions.com or pregnancytoprekexpo.com

Karen McKinnon Comox Valley Photographer Available for travel

250-890-9222

32

Island Parent Magazine

y wife and I have worked hard to make sure our three daughters help out around the house. They’ve been doing weekly chores for years, and more recently we’ve had them take care of the after-dinner clean up. It’s taken a lot of harassing and haranguing, but now they clean the bathrooms and they vacuum, sweep and mop the floors every weekend. With a little encouragement they clean up after dinner and fold the wash. Our kids complain of course, but my wife and I tolerate the whining and the long faces—it’s a small price to pay for some help around the house.

Now that we’re able to get the kids to knuckle down and do some work, we’ve found that problems start to come up when we want the kids not just to do something, but also to enjoy it.

I take charge of organized fun in the family. I rally the kids for games night. Every December I help them perform a Christmas play. I’m always trying to get the family to choose a book to read aloud together. On our last family vacation we brought along a copy of To Kill a Mockingbird and read it aloud every night. Once or twice I caught Evelyn, our eldest daughter, dozing while I read. At the end of key chapters I’d ask her questions to try and figure out whether she’d been paying attention. She got about half the answers right.

Part of the problem with my attempts to organize family fun is that the techniques I use to ensure the kids participate are largely the same as those we use to get the kids to do their chores—perseverance, insistence, lots of reminders and a raised voice now and then.

Last weekend my wife and I decided we’d take the family for a walk up Mount Work. We announced it Sunday morning to a chorus of groans from all three daughters.

We ignored all the complaints, ignored their threats to protest the walk by sitting in the car and refusing to move. We packed some snacks, included a little chocolate to use as a bribe, and got everyone into the car.

On the drive out, the kids plugged themselves into their iPods and phones. Ear buds in, the ride was quiet, but the moment we

IslandParent.ca

arrived, the complaints started up again.

“How far is it?” “Do we have to go all the way up?” “I can’t be gone for more than an hour.” Their reaction to a walk in the woods is never much different from their reaction to weekend chores.

Halfway up Mount Work, we came across friends who’d come without their kids. They

Dadspeak Daniel Griffin were impressed my wife and I had managed to wrangle our teen and pre-teen daughters into coming, and they asked how we did it.

“We didn’t give them a choice,” I said, and then my wife added: “But the truth is, they’re not enjoying it very much.”

This year for Christmas I gave the family a book called Without You There is No Us. It’s a memoir about teaching in North Korea and I thought the kids might find it interesting—our family has a bit of an obsession with the bizarre secret state of North Korea. I started reading it to them just after New Years, but we haven’t gotten far since. I brought it with us to Mount Work that day thinking we could read a bit at the summit, but the moment we hit the top, Evelyn and Tessa each took a slab of chocolate then started telling the rest of us about all the things they had to do and how important it was to get home. We headed down a minute or two later.

Persistence however is one of the key tools for rallying teens and pre-teens whether in chores or in organized fun and so on the drive home, I opened the book and started reading a chapter about how foreign teachers should behave in a North Korean school.

Evelyn, our eldest, threw up her hands.

“We just went on a walk all the way up that hill, and now we need to listen to this as well?”

I kept reading. Half a chapter in Evelyn had her eyes closed. She might have even fallen asleep.

Daniel Griffin is the father of three children and the author of Stopping for Strangers (Vehicule Press, 2012), a collection of short stories about parents, children, brothers and sisters.

IslandParent.ca

Matinees for KIDS! Saturdays & Sundays at 1pm All Seats $4.75

Mar 5 & 6 Boy and the World Mar 12 & 13 The Princess Bride Mar 15, 16, 17, 19, 20 The Peanuts Movie Mar 26 & 27 Grease

cinecenta Emmanuel Summer Camps 2016

Please register according to your child’s grade this Fall. Children must be 4 yrs old by Dec. 31, 2016 to attend the camps.

.com

Student Union Building, UVIC | 721-8365

Dates

Camp Themes

Ages

Fees

July 11–15 July 18–22

July 25–29 Aug 2–5 Aug 8–12 Aug 15–19

Dance & Music Camp, 9:00–3:00 Preschool Camp Jungle World, 9:00–Noon Science & Badminton, 9:00–3:00 Fun with ART & Activity, 9:00–Noon VBS: Deep Sea Discovery Wet & Wild Daycamp, 9:00–3:00

Gr 2–6 4–6 yrs

$98 $50

(Must be 4 yrs by Dec 31)

Gr 2–6 K–Gr 3 4 yrs–Gr 5 Gr 2–6

$98 $40 $15/ea $98

Register: 2121 Cedar Hill Cross Road

at the Cedar Hill Cross Road & Henderson entrance to UVic

Phone 250-592-2418 / Fax 250-592-4646 office@emmanuelvictoria.ca / emmanuelvictoria.ca

New Kids Dentist

Dr. Anita Gadzinska-Myers

is a Board Certified Specialist in Pediatric Dentistry and has a Fellowship in Special Needs Dentistry for children • Accepting new patients now (infants to teenagers) • Referral not needed • Member of Cleft Lip and Palate Team

Special Services:

short wait list • intravenous sedation • hospital dentistry • nitrous oxide

Victoria Pediatric Dental Centre 206–1830 Oak Bay Ave

www.victoriapediatricdentalcentre.ca

250-383-2133 March 2016 33

Tolstoy for Babies

A

few years ago, to entertain my kids on a drive up Island, I told them the story of Romeo and Juliet. My daughter and sons, aged seven, six and four, were a captive audience, strapped in car seats in the back.

As we headed up the Malahat, I introduced all the characters, built up Tybalt’s slaying of Mercutio, even described the clouds of Juliet’s potion as the friar swirled it in a jar.

The kids were rapt. But when I finally said the end, the car remained silent. Had I put them to sleep? I glanced in the rear view mirror. It revealed three red faces awash with tears. My daughter, the oldest, sobbed, “Why did you have to tell us that?” Then the other two started wailing.

Re-telling the classics for children is an art. Those who do it right understand their audience and never lose touch with their respect for the books. They boil them down, paraphrase, abridge, use large brushstrokes and supplement their texts with generous illustrations.

One recent project is Cozy Classics, a board book series that has won hearts and rave reviews around the world. Published

by Vancouver’s Simply Read Books (a company that makes beautiful books, but was in hot water last year for not paying its writers and artists, a problem they addressed by promising to hire a good bookkeeper), the titles—for babies! —include Pride and Prejudice, Moby Dick, Tom Sawyer, Emma, War and Peace and Les Misérables. The books are each 12 words long, one word per double page. The entire text of Les Misérables goes like this: poor, rich, sad, happy, run, climb, stroll, love, fire, stop, dark, together. Each word is paired with a charming needle-felted illustration “‘We created Cozy Classics to revitalize the genre of the baby word books by injecting a sense of narrative and fun for the parent,” says creator Jack Wang, who boils down great novels with his brother Holman Wang. “In doing so, we hope to

foster in children a lifelong love of reading and literature.”

My favourite Cozy Classics is Jane Eyre. It starts with the word Girl (unhappy Jane, living with the Reeds), then Red (the red room that falsely accused Jane is locked inside as punishment), Stand (her humiliation on her first day in residential school), Woman (Jane grown up), Fall (Rochester’s fall from the horse), Help (Jane helping Rochester), Kiss (lips not quite touching!), Stairs (those harrowing stairs at Thornwood), Leave (Jane’s night-time flight from Thornwood), Cold (poor Jane’s terrible hours alone and homeless), Hot (the fire at Thornwood), Care (Jane looking after Rochester). Parents can fill in the blanks (what’s up those stairs?

Why is she leaving?), making up parts that kids might not be ready for (do you need to tell your baby about polygamy?), or just talk about what’s in the pictures.

BabyLit is a Utah publisher’s similar effort, enjoyable but less endearing. BabyLit books include Dracula, a counting book— three wolves, six tombstones, nine boxes (actually, to the trained eye, coffins). Their Don Quixote is a sweet introduction to Spanish words—friend/el amigo, castle/el Castillo. Anna Karenina focuses on Anna’s clothes and accouterments: lovely buttonup boots, parasol, carriage. Other board books are Treasure Island and Sense and Sensibility.

Enduring popular works of literature generally have robust central plots and characters; complex language can be trimmed, secondary plots and characters can be pruned, but the story’s heart still pounds.

Since a picture is worth a thousand words, picture books and graphic novels are excellent delivery systems for classics.

You can’t go wrong with Marcia Williams, the indefatigable English illustrator who has retold Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales and The Odyssey for children ages eight to 14, as well as several of Shakespeare’s plays, Dickens’s

Great Expectations, David Copperfield and Oliver Twist, and Greek and Egyptian myths. Her richly filled, comics-style pages are feasts for the eye, and the stories are easy to follow but not diminished.

The nearly infallible publisher Usborne has a terrific Illustrated Stories from Shakespeare that retells Hamlet, Macbeth, Romeo and Juliet, The Tempest, Midsummer Night’s Dream and Twelfth Night for

Book Nook Sara CASSIDY

LEARN

PIANO! LEARN !

Last week, my son tackled the real version.

He put it down after only a few pages (he skipped the 40-page introduction) because he felt no tension. He already knew how the FUN WITH MARY ROGERS! story would turn out—there had been so SEASONAL BMus (Piano Performance) UBC, many spoilers. But after a few days, he picked ARCT and BCRMT PRIZES! it up again. I wonder if the unfamiliar narrative strands, simply the language, maybe FUN WITH MARY ROGERS! even its historicity, wading in 1300-year-old SEASONAL PRIZES! words, won him to it.

The classics settle into all corners of our lives. We quote them—all’s well that ends well—and reference them—don’t be a Scrooge—without even realizing it. The recent picture books Edgar and the TattleLESSONS FOR Tale Heart and Virginia Wolf accept the ALL, BEGINNER TO ADVANCED! ubiquity with playfulness. Edgar and the !

Tattle-Tale Heart, published by BabyLit, • ENTHUSIASTIC, FLEXIBLE FORPoe’s short story, The LESSONS! rifs onLESSONS Edgar Allan • ENTHUSIASTIC, 250-744-9049!

• 30+ YEARS OF TEACHING Tell Tale Heart.

While his mother is out, a mrogersmusicstudio@shaw.ca!

ALL, BEGINNER FLEXIBLE LESSONS EXCELLENCE! boy breaks a sculpture in the house, a bust • STUDIO NEAR UVIC • 30+ YEARS OF TEACHING TO Allan ADVANCED! of Edgar Poe, and his sister threatens EXPERIENCE to tell. The story stands well on its own, but • STUDIO NEAR UVIC if you know Poe’s story, you see the book’s • ENTHUSIASTIC, FLEXIBLE many winks: the sculpture in pieces (as MARY ROGERS PIANO STUDIO! the old man was hackedLESSONS! to pieces in Poe’s story), the boy’s eventual confession (like 250-744-9049!

• 30+ YEARS OF TEACHING the killer’s in The Tell Tale Heart), even the mrogersmusicstudio@shaw.ca! rising slope of the story’s tension.

EXCELLENCE! Virginia Wolf, published by Canada’s NEAR UVIC Kids Can Press, •isSTUDIO gorgeously illustrated and beautifully told. Said to be loosely 2016 based on the relationship between Virginia Woolf and her sister, the story starts with a blue (wolfish) Virginia and her the sunny sister’s efforts to cheer her up. Her most Get a Job! Strategies to Help lovely effort is a colourful drawing of a place Your Teen Find Work Cellphones & where Virginia wishes she could be—a place Citizen Science Ways Teens Can Assist called Bloomsberry. The picture is filled with Scientific Research blooms and berries, and ultimately woos Virginia from her slump.

PIANO! PIANO! !

LEARN

BMus (Piano Performance) UBC, ARCT and BCRMT

MARY ROGERS PIANO STUDIO!

children as young as six. I am still looking for a good King Lear for children—it seems like one that kids would easily understand. (Incidentally, Charles and Mary Lamb’s Tales from Shakespeare, originally published in 1807, is freely available online at eldritchpress.org. I find their prose versions very dull, but they were helpful to read before the kids and I would head to any Greater Victoria Shakespeare Festival production, as scaffolding to help understand the play).

From 1941 to 1961, Classics Illustrated produced comics versions of 169 classics such as Ivanhoe, Robinson Crusoe, The Call of the Wild, and The Invisible Man. In the 1990s, the series was revived, with reprints and whole new titles. The Greater Victoria Public Library has a number of the “Full-Colour Graphic Novel Adaptations,” as they are heralded on their covers, “Featuring Stories by the World’s Greatest Authors.” While they can look dated and are sometimes unnecessarily wordy, they are faithful retellings.

My 12-year-old son says that reading abridged classics leaves him interested in reading the real deal one day. He has read The Odyssey in several guises (I highly recommend Gillian Gross’s version for eight- to 12-year-olds and Gareth Hinds’s graphic novel adaptation for 10- to 14-year-olds).

!

ion for Parents with

The Resource Publicat

Sara Cassidy’s six books for children and teens have all been included in Canadian Children’s Book Centre’s “Best Books for Children and Teens.” Sara lives in Victoria with her three kids, and at saracassidywriter.com. Book Nook is written with the invaluable assistance of GVPL librarian Lonestar Stone.

Teenagers

Teen Resources

Check Out Our NEW

Island Parent Teens Island Parent Teens is filled with valuable information, insights and resources, along with words of wisdom/frustration/elation and support. You’ll find articles on strategies to help your teen find work, ways teens can assist scientific research, dangerous apps to watch out for and talking to teens about substance use.

Island Parent Teens is available at rec centres, libraries, schools, health units and most places you pick up Island Parent.

March 2016

35

Cowichan Aquatic Centre 2653 James Street 250.746.7665

Discover Fun

Now Register Online www.northcowichan.ca

With Our Spring Break Day Camps!

Enter Our Online Contests Every month at IslandParent.ca you can enter to win some great prizes!

Prizes include:

• Family Getaways • IMAX Passes

• Gift Certificates • Books, CDs and More

One entry per family per week.

Check out the prizes and enter the contests by visiting

IslandParent.ca

Take your creativity out of the box.

Time for you and your family to discover your sense of curiosity and wonder. Register now for Spring Studio Classes at the at the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria. Join our encouraging artist-instructors in the studio, galleries and gardens for classes and workshops suited for children, teens and adults.

Register at aggv.ca/art-studio or in person at the Gallery. aggv_9363_AG830_IslandParent.indd 1

36 Island Parent Magazine

1040 MOSS ST

2016-02-18 1:38 PM

Mother Guilt

I

t had been one of those days. My daughter was now sleeping, and my son was having some quiet time watching a show, so I snuck off for a bath. I listened to the rain hit our tin roof and flipped open an excerpt in Finding Your Inner Mama called, “Guilt— What It Does to Us,” by Anne Roiphe.

It’s funny how the universe works; I needed to read that exact essay.

Her words and stories soothed me while I thought about the day.

In the essay, Roiphe talks about her divorce, how she’s broke and about the guilt of leaving her two-and-a-half-year-old with a sitter as she takes off to a night class after a long day and after a struggle saying goodbye to her screaming daughter.

“The churning in my stomach is not all sympathy and love. Something else, a desire to leave has entered. This only makes me feel more guilty, guilty as charged, leaving a child,” she writes.

I rest my finger on the page, take a break and think about my own experiences earlier.

I had a great morning. I felt good because I had stuck to my healthy eating goals and worked out at the gym the days before.

Because it was raining, I decided on a whim to take the kids to the pool.

Just getting into the car was tough, packing the bags, loading up, buckling the kids in while they whined about who knows what, and losing my phone. I knew it was somewhere in the car as my Bluetooth was connecting, but I couldn’t find it. I was so frustrated, searching for my phone while both kids were upset for different reasons.

But it was leaving the pool that was the kicker. Two teenage girls, part of a school group, chatted about some event and how they were probably going to be the last two girls on the bus as they got ready in the change room while I did my best to contain myself. I went back and forth giving demands, scolding one child while I hustled to find the other’s clothes. The kids were acting like animals and I was frustrated. But it had nothing to do with the girls. There was a juxtaposition of life stages and responsibilities, though, that was evident—theirs so nonchalant and mine so frantic.

IslandParent.ca

Overnight & Leadership Camps

As we walked outside the building into the wind and pouring rain my son decided to stroll toward traffic so I grabbed his hood and pulled him towards our car. He tried to break free and fell in front of us, almost tripping me and my daughter in my arms.

Our bags fell to the ground. Just at that moment the two girls brushed past me. I let out a roar and blew out all my stifled

Is There an App for This?

ASHLEY DEGRAAF frustrations. It was like the rumbling of thunder before lightning strikes. I was so done with that day and I was at my wits end with the kids. The girls looked at me like I was nuts.

As soon as we got to the car all I could think of was, ‘I’m hungry. I’m going to pig out on junk food.’ And I did. It’s funny how the mind works. I was fed up, so I broke my health streak.

And then there was the whole slew of guilt that followed. Why was I so short with the kids? The day wasn’t so bad. That kind of stuff is just what life with kids is like, right?

I probably looked stupid in front of the girls outside of the pool. I broke my calm.

I broke the perception.

I look back at my book and continue reading Roiphe’s piece.

“There are terrible twos,” she writes, “when a child asserting independence refuses to wear mittens on a freezing cold day and for a moment your frustration turns you into a wild thing. There’s the other kind of anger that comes when you need sleep and the child wakes you or you need to soak in the bath and the child wants you to see his block tower…”

Anger, mother guilt and losing control is normal. And nothing good comes from dwelling on it.

We know we’re not alone. We know children aren’t perfect. We aren’t perfect as parents. And we know there’s always another day. That’s what I told myself anyways that evening as I kissed my kids goodnight.

Challenge - Adventure - Friends for Life YMCA-YWCA

Spaces available for summer programs running from 5 to 19 days in length. Financial Assistance is available through our Strong Kids campaign.

For details:

victoriay.com/campthunderbird

For more info:

registration@victoriay.com 250.413.8859

JOB #YOGV-18006 CLIENT: YMCA-YWCA OF GREATER VICTORIA PUBLICATION: ISLAND PARENT INSERTION DATE: TBC SIZE: 4.75" X 4.75 PREPARED BY: ECLIPSE CREATIVE INC. @ 250-382-1103

Ashley Degraaf is a freelance writer based out of the Cowichan Valley. She enjoys channeling her inner momma while chronicling her daily adventures with her children.

IslandParent.ca

March 2016 37

Feeding Your Baby in the First Year

F Check out our parenting courses!

Our Lighthouse Parent courses are designed to help you discover how to deepen your connection with your kids and enhance your parenting.

The courses examine theories of attachment and attunement and developmental stages related to the age of your child/ren. Participants will also explore the connec‐ tion between how you were parented and how you parent. Check our website www.1-up.ca for more detailed info on this and many other courses.

To register for any course or for more information call

250-385-1114 or email Cheryl@1-up.ca 38 Island Parent Magazine

eeding your baby in the first year of life is an exciting and fun adventure for both baby and parents. Just wait until you see your little one react to different flavour and texture. Get the camera ready! Is it time for your baby to venture into the world of solid food? Breastmilk is the only food necessary for your little one until they show signs of needing solid food, close to the six-month mark. Babies’ iron stores begin to decrease around six months of age. This means that iron from iron-rich foods is needed for healthy infant growth, development, and to prevent iron deficiency anemia. Iron is very important for brain development. Iron-rich foods include lamb, veal, beef, iron-fortified cereals (choose a single-grain variety like rice to start off with), chicken, tofu, fish, turkey, pork, beans and egg yolks.

In the early days of introducing solids, offer solid foods twice a day after breastfeeding. Wait for a few days between adding new foods. An excellent resource on what foods to introduce and when throughout the first year including daily food suggestions is “Toddlers First Steps” available at your local public health unit or online.

Follow baby’s cues: Taking cues from your baby on when he wants to eat solid foods is an extension of breastfeeding on demand. Babies will give you signs to show their interest in eating: • intently watching others eat • making little noises and sucking motions with mouth • sitting and holding head up • watching and opening mouth for a spoon and closing lips around the spoon • not pushing food out of mouth with tongue A hungry baby will typically open her mouth when food is offered, lean forward excitedly, kick her feet, or wave her hands when food is offered. A baby who has had enough will usually close his mouth when food is offered, turn his head away when food is offered or push food away—or throw it on the floor.

While your baby is sitting on your lap at the dinner table, you may notice that he may take your hand and redirect your fork to his open mouth. By watching for and responding to these hunger and fullness cues, you can help your baby be healthy, eat well and enjoy food. Babies’ appetites can vary from day to day, just like ours. Sometimes they will eat a lot. Other times, they won’t have much interest in food at all. Follow your child’s cues for hunger and fullness. Start by offering a teaspoon or two. Don’t rush.

Allowing your baby to lead the way promotes independence in eating, and helps your child to develop a healthy relationship with food. Your job as parent in terms of food and nutrition from the moment your baby starts eating solid food until they reach a level of independence (years later) is to offer a variety of healthy options in safe shapes, sizes, portions and textures. Your child’s job is to be in charge of how much they eat. Early on, your baby can experience the taste of whole foods through a self-led approach which will set the pace of how much they want to eat.

Foods to avoid: • foods that are round or cylindrical in shape such as hot dogs, nuts, carrot slices, popcorn, whole grapes, seeds, marshmallows and candies.

• dried fruits and fruit bars can stick to teeth which may lead to tooth decay—it is a good idea to wipe your baby’s gums with a clean, damp cloth twice a day for good oral health.

• foods high in saturated fat such as fried foods are hard to digest.

• foods high in salt. Read labels closely since there are no regulations on how much sodium is in even “baby friendly” foods.

• foods that contain added sugar or artificial sweeteners.

• honey or corn syrup (either may contain botulism spores which can make babies very sick)

IslandParent.ca

• juice should be limited to 1⁄4 to 1⁄2 cup per day. If you decide to offer juice, only offer 100 per cent unsweetened juice but the best option is always to eliminate juice completely.

Setting up healthy eating for life: Even if your little one has not started eating solids foods yet, it is not too early to think about how to raise a healthy eater

New Parent Pages Diana Hurschler, BScN who will make wise choices into adulthood.

You can pave the way by making the very best choices for yourself and keeping your kitchen stocked with good food. At the grocery store, focus on buying foods from the perimeter of the store which are more abundantly stocked with whole foods.

The food that is packaged and processed is located in the middle aisles. Embracing a “whole foods for the whole family” way of eating will make the pathway clear for your child.

A great routine to get into is to eat together every evening as a way of creating a healthy family food culture. If you can, eat together with your baby as often as possible as it is an excellent way to promote healthy eating and to develop their social skills. Your baby learns by watching you and studies show that children who eat meals with family members tend to eat more nutritious foods and do better in school. Babies also do well with regular routines. Sitting down for meals and snacks at the same times each day provides babies with the structure they need so they can focus on eating a variety of foods and learning to feed themselves.

Keep meal times calm. Turn off electronics and put away other distractions like toys and books. Focus on being together and enjoying your meal. And most of all, have fun with this stage!

Diana Hurschler, RN BscN, childbirth educator, certified breastfeeding counselor, has been helping families in their childbearing years and beyond since 1998. Diana is the proud mama of four little ones. Email diana@hurschler.com.

IslandParent.ca

Dates July 4th to July 29th Junior and Senior programs.

For more info and registration visit www.balletvictoria.ca

P D - A D - ..

Christ Church Cathedral School SPRING & SUMMER PROGRAMS We’re Going Places!

Beacon Hill Petting Zoo, Blenkinsop Mini Golf, Butterfly Gardens, Elk & Beaver Lake, Fort Rodd Hill, Gyro Park, Langford Lanes Bowling, Miniature World, Royal BC Museum & IMAX Theatre, Shaw Ocean Discovery Centre, Victoria Bug Zoo, Witty’s Lagoon . . .

Registration on now for Spring and Summer. Choose the days or weeks that fit your schedule.

Day camps run from 7:30am - 6:00pm. Spring: Mar 14 - 23 | Summer: Jun 27 - Aug 31.

NEW: Spaces available for 3 & 4 year olds for Fall 2016 at our JK - call 250-383-5132

250-383-5125 | 912 Vancouver Street | www.cathedralschool.ca March 2016 39

Family Services Directory our Parents Together program and parent workshops.

For more information on all programs and services visit bgcvic.org or call 250-384-9133.

HappyBaby Sleep Solutions helps families create healthy sleep habits in babies and children so everyone is well rested and happy. Sukkie Sandhu, M.Ed., has worked with hundreds of families locally in Victoria and worldwide. Sukkie is a Registered Clinical Counsellor so the cost of a sleep consultation may be covered under your extended medical plan. For more information visit www. happybabysleepsolutions.com or call 250-857-1408 for a FREE evaluation. Let’s get started!

The Canucks Autism Network (CAN) provides yearround, high quality sports, recreational, social and arts programs for children, teens and young adults living with autism, while building awareness and providing training through community networks across British Columbia.

CAN currently offers Soccer (ages 5-15), Swim (ages 4-15), Physical Literacy (ages 4-11), Family Events and Camps on Vancouver Island. To learn how you can join, please visit canucksautism.ca/join or email info@ canucksautism.ca.

HeadWay Victoria Epilepsy & Parkinson’s Centre supports families living with seizures by offering parent workshops three times a year, educational presentations in schools and community groups as well as providing tutoring sessions and one-to-one professional consultations to help your child live up to their highest potential.

Keep up to date with the latest research about treatments, lifestyle, and safety issues for your child. We can be reached at headwayvictoria.com, or you can reach the Epilepsy Program Coordinator directly at 250-475-6677.

CHOICES Adoption & Counselling is a licensed, professional, non-profit agency that provides services to adoptive parents, birth-parents, and adoptees. CHOICES arranges adoptions domestically and internationally. We are committed to providing a comprehensive, clientcentered adoption service which best meets the needs of everyone in the adoption constellation. Please contact us at choices@choicesadoption.ca, or call 250-479-9811 for further information.

Inter-Cultural Association of Greater Victoria (ICA) is a service agency for immigrants and refugees. Programs offered include cross-cultural counseling, parenting programs (child care available), family violence programs, employment services, interpretation and translation, diversity workshops and training, ESL instruction, volunteering, youth programs and tutoring, as well as intercultural arts programming. 930 Balmoral Rd, 250-388-4728, info@ icavictoria.org, icavictoria.org.

Countryside Preschool is a cooperative preschool where our qualified ECE provides stimulating instruction to develop your child’s social and cognitive skills. Families build a network of support through our parent-participation days. Classes are in session Sept–June; Tues–Thurs; 9am–1pm. Flexible registration options available. Visit our FREE Stay ’N Play sessions for caregivers and tots, Mondays, 10am–noon. Visit countrysidepreschool.org or call 250-652-3424.

Learning Disabilities Association of BC, SVI Chapter, educates, supports and advocates for children and youth with learning disabilities and related conditions.

Services include a public lending library, individual/ group support for parents and children, professional/ educational workshops for parents and professionals. Child and youth programs include: reading/ writing, academic skills, social/emotional skill development and Fast ForWord. 1562 Fort St, Victoria, BC V8S 5J2. Ph 250-370-9513. Fax. 250-370-9421. ldasvi.bc.ca. knowyourrights.ca.

This directory, sponsored by Thrifty Foods, features not for profit agencies and organizations serving children, youth and families.

1Up, Victoria Single Parent Resource Centre (www.1up.ca) provides support, education and resources for parents in the Greater Victoria area through free counselling, volunteer training for peer helper positions, a mentoring program for single moms and a support group for dads.

The Centre also offers a variety of integrated life skills and parenting courses which are open to the whole community (fees are on a sliding scale). The Centre provides free toys and books, a clothing room and bread pantry for single parents. Donations of gently-used clothing, small household items, books and toys are welcome. Hours are Mon, Tue, Thu, Fri: 9-4, Wed: 12-7. 602 Gorge Rd. East; call 250-385-1114 or info@1-up.ca Beacon Community Services is a community-based non-profit agency providing social, employment, and health services to Saanich Peninsula, Greater Victoria, and Southern Gulf Islands residents. Beacon offers: child, youth, and family services; a drop-in family resource centre; counselling; employment services for adults, youth, and people with disabilities; home support; volunteer services and opportunities; community events; affordable assisted living for seniors; referrals, information, and resources; thrift shops. For Home Support information call 250658-6407; for all other inquiries call 250-656-0134, or visit beaconcs.ca.

Beacon Community’s Employment Services. Beacon Community Services provides a full menu of employment services to the Saanich Peninsula, Southern Gulf Islands.

We have been helping people find work since 1982! Our programs build on a client’s strengths and resolve barriers to securing and maintaining employment. Furthermore, we work in tandem with our employer network to support those residents looking for work. If you need help finding a job or need employees please pay us a visit! It’s FREE. 9860 Third St, Sidney, 250-656-0134, beaconcs.ca.

Boys & Girls Club Services offer after-school and evening social, educational and recreational programming for children and youth at 5 locations (Colwood, Langford, VicWest, Central Saanich and Esquimalt) and summer camps both in Esquimalt and at our Outdoor Centre in Metchosin. We also offer support to parents through

3-5 yrs Pre-primary School

TM

Family Services of Greater Victoria (formerly BC Families in Transition) is a non profit agency that has been serving families since 1978. We provide a full range of services to the whole family in supporting their relationship and through separation and divorce. Counseling, mediation, legal information and a range of group programs are available for children, youth and adults on a sliding fee scale.

Call us at 250-386-4331 or visit fsgv.org. We can help.

Military Family Resource Centre (MFRC) provides programs and services to the military family community including: 24-Hour Information Line; Deployment Information and Workshops; Short Term Counselling, Crisis Support or Intervention; Welcome/Relocation Services; Childcare and Family Support Services; Assistance for Families with Special Needs and Responsibilities. Excit-

A gentle learning opportunity for young children: - learning naturally through play

The joy of learning - naturally.

http://oakandorca.ca 250 383 6609 40 Island Parent Magazine

- nature awareness and respect - compassionate communication - experience with math and science - exposure to books and language arts

IslandParent.ca

ing Volunteer opportunities available! Call the MFRC: 250-363-2640 (1-800-353-3329) for information or visit esquimaltmfrc.com.

Register Today!

Power To Be provides inclusive nature-based activity programs for youth and families living with a barrier or disability who need support to access recreation and their community. We create year-round programs to fit participant needs through activities such as kayaking, rock climbing, hiking, canoeing and more. Visit powertobe.ca or call 250-385-2363 to get involved.

July and August Summer Sleepover Camps Summer Day Camps Leadership Programs Year-Round Rentals & School Groups

Rested Development Sleep Consulting. I am educated in ALL sleep-training methods and together we use a method that best suits YOUR family and values. My services are unique in that I use an integrative approach to sleep using healthy sleep foundations including: emotional well-being, nutrition, breastfeeding, family dynamics, child temperaments, sleep environments, sleep/wake windows, sleep associations, and developmental milestones, in conjunction with sleep training. For more information please visit resteddevelopment.com or call 250-937-0996 for a free 15 minute consultation.

Sooke Family Resource Society (SFRS) provides Family Resource Programs including: Prenatal Education and Outreach, Parent-Tot Drop-In Groups, Parent Discussion Groups, Family Support Groups and Outreach, a Toy and Book Lending Library, and Kingfisher Preschool. SookeWestshore Child Care Resource and Referral services, as well as all-ages counselling services are also provided

by SFRS. Services are provided from the Child, Youth and Family Centres in both Sooke and the Westshore.

Call 250-642-5152 for more information or visit our website at sfrs.ca.

SFRS’s Welcome Home Program is looking for homes that can support adults diagnosed with a disability looking to gain further independence. The livingsituations are varied and unique and can include living within a family home or a suite in the family home. The needs of the individuals are varied, dependent on the disability, but can include relationship building, life skills, meal prep, etc. For more information, please call 778-433-2023 or go tosfrs.ca.

Sooke-Westshore Early Years Centres provide information to families about children and family services, supports, child development and parenting. The Early Years Navigator will assist families with referral information for local early years programming, child care, public health, special needs intervention services, and social supports. The Sooke-Westshore Early Years Centres are hosted by Sooke Family Resource Society and located at the Child, Youth, and Family Centres in both Sooke and the Westshore and can be reached at 250-217-9243.

Additional information can be accessed at sfrs.ca/earlyyears-centre.

Victoria immigrant and Refugee Centre Society (VIRCS) supports immigrants and refugees living in Greater Victoria. Services are free and include one-onone counselling, parent education workshops, youth life skills classes, a preschool program, art therapy, language classes and academic support, employment help, computer classes and fun community events like free yoga, tai chi, dance and cooking classes. Visit us online at vircs. bc.ca or phone 250-361-9433.

IslandParent.ca

CampPringle.com • 250-743-2189 • registrar@camppringle.com

SPACES AVAILABLE

• preschool to grade 2 • before and after

school care

• small class sizes • supportive and

caring staff

• excellent academic

foundation

• Kodaly music

A local non-profit serving all children since 1973 5575 West Saanich Rd info@islandmontessori.com 250 592 4411 www.islandmontessori.com

program

• lovely rural location

connecting children to nature

Writing for Island Parent Workshop Many of the articles in Island Parent are written by people just like you: parents who want to share their experiences, knowledge and ideas with other parents. We’re always happy to consider your submission, whether you’re a published writer or not. If you’re itching to express yourself but need a few pointers or a friendly nudge, come out for an evening of inspiration.

We’re holding a Writing for Island Parent Workshop on Tuesday, April 19th, 2016, 7:30–9pm, location TBA. Space is limited. If you’d like to attend, please e-mail Sue Fast at editor@islandparent.ca.

Come out and get those creative juices flowing!

Under an hour from Swartz Bay with direct daily ferries to Mayne Island

Island hopping packages now available 9 housekeeping cottages perfect for family getaways

250-539-2463 • 1-877-535-2424 bluevista@bluevistaresort.com • www.bluevistaresort.com March 2016

41

Preschool & Child Care Directory CENTRAL SAANICH Chrysalis Child Care................................ 250-652-0815 A nurturing and stimulating environment for a small group of 21⁄2–5 year old children. Qualified ECE promotes learning through play. chrysalischildcare.ca.

Colwood/LANGFORD Goldstream Co-op Preschool................. 250-474-3011 Learning Through Play for 3 and 4yr olds! For registration information go to our website: goldstreampreschool.com.

Leap Forward Childcare......................... 250-818-9225 2758 Peatt RD. Licenced group childcare for children ages 6 months to 5 years old. Offering fulltime and part-time care. Open 6:30am-5:30pm. For more information please contact Amber: info@leap forwardlangford.com, leapforwardlangford.com.

Miles of Smiles Nature Junior Kindergarten.................... 778-265-4374 Come See Why Learning In Nature Rocks! Reggio Influenced Philosophy ages 3-5. Have Your Child Become a Nature Detective Today! Email mosnjk@hotmail.com.

RIA Early Learning Centre...................... 250-590-0781 Reggio Program—for Preschool aged children. A unique learning environment—encourages each child’s development. reggiopreschool.ca.

CORDOVA BAY Carrot Seed Preschool............................ 250-658-2331 Where children can discover, imagine, construct and learn through play. Wondrous natural playground. carrotseedpreschool.com.

Lakeview Christian Preschool/Daycare.. 250-658-5082 30 mths to Kindergarten entry. Small group. Experienced teacher. Full time and part time spaces. Mornings only or full day. Monthly DROP IN STORY HOUR. For information please e-mail lakeviewschol@shaw.ca.

ESQUIMALT Ciara Early Childhood Centre................. 250-386-7369 Education and Fun Hand in Hand! Exceptional care for ages 1-5yrs. Inclusive nature inspired kindergarten readiness program with Christian values. Facebook.com/ CiaraEarlyChildhoodCentre.

Island Kids Academy Esquimalt............. 250-381-2929 High quality child care (ages 1-5). Preschool curriculum offered within a warm, caring all-day program. Character development using the Virtues Project. Access to community programs including swimming, skating, Victoria Conservatory of Music. Part-time spaces available. islandkids.ca.

Child Care

Resource & Referral www.islandfamilyinfo.ca www.ccrr.bc.ca 42 Island Parent Magazine

La Pré-Maternelle Appletree Preschool.. 250-479-0292 A French Immersion Program. 30 months to school age.

Licensed Christian centre. prematernelleappletree.com.

Highlands

Recreation Oak Bay................................ 250-370-7200 Fully licensed, ECE Daycare, Preschool and Nature Preschool. Play based, child led learning. Afterschool care available.

SAANICH

Lexie’s Little Bears Child Care Inc......... 250-590-3603 Only seconds past Luxurious Bear Mountain our HIGHLY reputable Nature Program will not disappoint! Our NATURAL outdoor environment provides an experience like no other…in our own rainforest. Located on 2 acres of treed forest land, your child will learn and grow in NATURE! Our Brand NEW Infant/Toddler centre is tranquil and serene.

All the furniture, shelving and some toys have been hand crafted using the trees on our own property! Programs for 3 to 5’s and for Infant/Toddlers. Spaces avail. NOW! Visit our Facebook blog, and website at lexieslittlebears.com.

Call for more info. Cub House: 778-432-3600.

METCHOSIN Metchosin Co-op Preschool................... 250-478-9241 Est. 1960. Our school provides a beautiful natural play space and inclusive child led learning through play emergent curriculum. Two excellent ECEs per class provide loving and enriching family support. Half-day programs for 2.5-5 yrs. metchosinpreschool.com.

West-Mont Montessori School............... 250-474-2626 Preschool Montessori instruction in a beautiful natural environment in Metchosin. Ages 30 months and up. Providing a balanced approach to incorporating Nature, French, Music and Art into a complete educational program. Be a part of a community devoted to the development of the whole child. Open House: Thursdays 9-11 am. west-mont.ca.

North SAANICH In The Garden Childcare Centre............. 250-654-0306 A GREAT PLACE TO GROW. Offering preschool, full day care, before and after school care for children aged 2.5 to 12 years old. Open all year.

OAK BAY Emmanuel Preschool.............................. 250-598-0573 Children learn through play in our non-denominational Christian preschool near UVic. Bright attractive setting. emmanuelpreschool.ca.

Gonzales Co-op Preschool..................... 250-727-1003 Children explore their imaginations in our learning-throughplay environments and large natural playground. Our Reggio Emilia inspired program focuses on art, nature, music and friendship. Over 50 years serving Victoria’s families. Nuturing and highly qualified ECE and ECE Assistant. Parent participation level options available, nut-free and allergy-aware. Join us! gonzalespreschool.com.

Arbutus Grove Children’s Centre........... 250-477-3731 Formerly known as Goosey Gander Kindergarten. Half Day and Full Day Preschool Programs. Children’s learning is supported and nurtured through inquiry, exploration, play and creative expression. arbutusgrove.ca.

Camosun College Child Care Services......250-370-4880 Quality licensed facilities on both campuses providing children, newborn to 5 years, with rich early learning experiences in a learn through play environment. camosun.ca/childcare.

Carrot Seed Preschool............................ 250-658-2331 Where children can discover, imagine, construct and learn through play. Wondrous natural playground. carrotseedpreschool.com.

Cloverdale Child Care.................................250-995-1766 Register now for preschool 4 year olds Mon/Wed/Fri 9:00–1:00 & 3 & 4 year olds Tue/Thur 9:00–1:00. Full time Early Learning Centre 7:00am – 6:00 pm 3–5 year olds.

Before and after school care. cloverdalechildcare@shawbiz. ca, cloverdalechildcare.com.

Full o’ Beans Preschool.............................. 250-360-1148 We offer ‘learn through play’ programming designed to foster your child’s natural curiosity and imagination. Flexible scheduling, 2.5 and 4 hour programs, qualified staff.

Registration is ongoing! saanichneighbourhoodplace.com.

Island Montessori House........................ 250-592-4411 Inclusive, integrated and nurturing Preschool and Kindergarten programs. Located in a lovely rural setting with a focus on nature and outdoor environmental activities such as gardening and composting. islandmontessori.com.

Lakehill Co-op Preschool....................... 250-477-4141 Where children’s development is nurtured through a child centered inclusive, play based program. Come visit our natural outdoor playground and meet our loving qualified ECE team. Multiple Levels of participation available, please enquire. lakehillpreschool.org.

Lambrick Park Preschool & Childcare.. 250-477-8131 Gordon Head’s only parent-participation preschool and childcare centre. Flexible options, play-based learning and outdoor play. Allergy friendly. Celebrating 40+ years. lambrickparkpreschool.ca.

Neighbourhood Junior Kindergarten..... 250-479-4410

Looking for child care? Need help with subsidy forms?

Taking care of children? Need child care training?

Your community’s best source of child care information and resources.

Victoria & Gulf Islands: 250-382-7000 or 1-800-750-1868 Sooke: 250-642-5152 Westshore: 250-391-4324 Cowichan Valley: 250-746-4135 local 231 PacificCare (Ladysmith north): 250-756-2022 or 1-888-480-2273 Funded by the Province of BC

IslandParent.ca

Preschool & Child Care Directory Oakcrest Preschool................................. 250-472-0668 A welcoming, nurturing environment with a large, bright facility. Learn through play with 2 caring ECEs. oakcrestpreschool.org.

Castleview Child Care............................. 250-595-5355 Learning Through Play & Discovery. Licensed non-profit, qual. ECE staff. Since 1958. Preschool and full-time care. castleviewchildcarecentre.com.

View Royal Childcare.............................. 250-479-8067 Preschool structured, high quality childcare. Victoria Conservatory of Music classes. Part time spaces available.

2.5-5year olds. viewroyalpreschool@live.com.

Pacific Christian School – Pre-School... 250-479-4532 Your child will love the playful, safe environment and caring staff at PCS Pre-School. Come and explore Educational Excellence to the Glory of God. PacificChristian.ca

Centennial Day Care............................... 250-386-6832 Exceptional childcare and education 35+ years. Nature inspired, play based program. NEW central, “green” building. centennialdaycare.ca.

View Royal Preschool.............................. 250-479-8067 Exciting inclusive program in a safe and exceptional care environment. 3-5 year olds. Outside play and themes enrich this program. viewroyalpreschool.com.

Rainbows & Dreams Preschool.............. 250-479-1966 Small classes for 3-5 yr olds in a safe nurturing environment. Children learn through play and fun–developing a sense of confidence, independence and creativity. Highly qualified ECE teacher.

Christ Church Cathedral Childcare and Junior Kindergarten......................... 250-383-5132 ECE and Specialist teachers provide an outstanding all-day, licensed program for 3–5 year olds. Spacious, renovated facility with a huge backyard in Fairfield. cathedralschool.ca.

Mill Bay / Cobble Hill

Ready Set Grow Preschool..................... 250-472-1530 Inside Hillcrest Elm. in Gordon Head, we help children transition to Kindergarten. Licensed Preschool with highly qualified, warm ECE. heoscmanager@gmail.com.

Downtown Y Child Care Centre............. 250-413-8869 Enriched program, for children ages 3-5 years, supporting healthy child development and future school success. victoriay.com.

Rogers Child Care Centre....................... 250-744-2343 Trusted High Quality Non Profit Care since 1991. Year Round Early Learning and Out of School Care. For more info go to rogerschildcare.com.

Nightingale Preschool and Junior Kindergarten Ltd.................. 250-595-7544 We offer education through creativity and play, providing rich learning experiences through a well sourced and stimulating indoor and outdoor environment. Early years reading programme. nightingalepreschool.com. Arts/ Drama programme. kidsworks.ca.

St. Joseph’s Catholic Preschool................250-479-1237 • A Christian child centre for 3–5 year olds.

• A warm nurturing and challenging program • Offered by St. Joseph’s Catholic School.

Wiseways Preschool & Daycare............. 250-477-1312 Quality, fully licensed, Christian preschool/daycare for 3–4 year olds. Experienced team of ECEs. Spacious facilities include large playground and indoor gym. Subsidized fees welcome. Call for a tour. wisewaysvictoria.com.

SIDNEY Acorntree Preschool............................... 250-686-1408 Balanced indoor/outdoor program, designed to stimulate natural curiosity and foster empathy and compassion towards others. We believe in the importance of both child and teacher directed activities. acorntreepreschool.ca.

Positive Path Early Learning.................. 250-655-7244 Located near the library and Sidney School, our program has earned a stellar reputation for quality child care and is growing as fast as the children we care for. Space is available for your child to embark on a journey of active exploration and discovery, enjoying a natural outdoor playground and an expansive indoor learning space. Experienced educators foster a lifelong quest for knowledge and guide children with Christian values and virtues. positivepath@shaw.ca.

Storyoga Preschool................................. 778-679-4004 Embracing and empowering children exactly as they are.

Storyoga Preschool is a nature and yoga based program located in Sidney, BC. storyoga.com.

VICTORIA ArtsCalibre Academy.............................. 250-382-3533 Comprehensive programs for Preschool through Grade 6, delivering academic excellence through music, dance, drama and visual arts. Outstanding educators, locations and facilities. ArtsCalibre.ca Babies to Big Kids Childcare......................250-590-2722 949 Fullerton Ave. Licenced group childcare for children ages 6 months to 11 years old. Offering full-time and part-time care. Open 6:30am-5:30pm. info@babies tobigkids.com, babiestobigkids.com.

IslandParent.ca

Parkdale Early Childhood Centre........... 250-382-0512 ECEs offer the highest quality care and positive learning experiences in our daycare and preschool. Full time or part time. Call for a tour or visit us at parkdalechildcare.ca.

Rainbow Express Daycare...................... 250-382-2314 A nurturing environment for children to learn through play and discovery in a natural setting. ECEs and specialist teachers. rainbowexpressdaycare.com. Close to city centre.

Ross Bay Preschool................................ 250-383-7445 Positive/supportive program motivating children to learn, discover and grow through play. Daily outdoor time, special guests and community events! rossbaypreschool @shaw.ca.

The Sir James Douglas Playschool....... 250-389-0500 Fun, creative and educational ECE program for 3-5 year olds to grow and develop life long skills. Come play and learn in our bright and modern centre in Fairfield.

Victoria Montessori................................. 250-380-0534 Unique, innovative learning environment combining the best of Montessori and Learning Through Play. Open yr. round. 30mths–K. victoriamontessori.com.

VIEW ROYAL Island Kids Academy View Royal........... 250-727-2929 High quality child care (ages 1-5). Preschool curriculum offered within a warm, caring child care environment.

Character development using the Virtues Project. Access to community programs including swimming, skating, Victoria Conservatory of Music. Part-time spaces available. islandkids.ca.

Little Wonders Preschool (View Royal OSC)..................................... 250-744-2718 A creative and supportive program that will prepare your child for a lifetime of learning! Out of School Care is also available for school aged children. viewroyalosc.com.

Cedar Montessori..................................... 250-710-9007 A beautiful rural setting where children are lovingly supported to learn at their own pace within a stimulating Montessori environment.

DUNCAN Parkside Academy.................................... 250-746-1711 Providing high quality early learning and care from infancy to 12 years of age, in a stimulating, respectful, nurturing, nature based environment with fully educated and passionate early childhood educators. Visit parksideacademy. ca or find us on Facebook.

Queen Margaret’s School......................... 250-746-4185 Early Childhood Education Program. Co-ed nurturing curriculum to develop the whole child. Healthy snacks and lunch provided. qms.bc.ca.

Queen of Angels Early Learning Centre... 250-701-0433 We believe that the development of the whole child (physically, socially, emotionally, cognitively, and spiritually) encourages each individual to develop to their full potential. We offer an enriched full day program for 3–5 year olds based on Kindergarten readiness.

Sunrise Waldorf School Preschool........... 250-743-7253 A warm, nature-based Waldorf rhythm where wonder is nurtured. Led by Waldorf trained ECE teachers. sunrisewaldorfschool.org.

Chemainus St. Joseph’s Preschool........................... 250-246-3191 An enriching preschool program allowing children to grow as individuals in a safe and nurturing Christian environment.

Qualicum Beach Children’s Discovery Centre................... 250-752-4343 Our program recognizes the uniqueness of each child and provides a nurturing, safe and creative learning environment. Licensed preschool, group care and out of school care. Early Childhood Educators. childrensdiscovery centre.ca. childrensdiscoverycentre@hotmail.com.

Little Star Children’s Centre................... 250-752-4554 Mother, Daughter owned and operated. Earth friendly preschool education inspired by nature. Infused with fun and creative daily yoga practices! Licensed group care.

Enthusiastic ECE instructors. littlestardaycare.ca

Port Alberni John Paul II Catholic School.................. 250-723-0637 “Where children grow and learn through play.” We provide a program that will inspire development physically, socially, emotionally, cognitively, creatively and spiritually.

A Secret Garden Preschool.................... 250-380-8293 Program built on Christian values. Monthly themes, weekly topics and daily activities. asecretgardenpreschool@ shaw.ca.

March 2016 43

Art Classes & Workshops for kids and adults

Spring Break Camps Open Studio Drop-ins Retreats

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Out of Control

I

can’t control my son.

There are likely a number of people who have thought this when encountering Angus and me, him in the throws of a meltdown and me unable to do much but carry him out of earshot.

He’s four and a half, too old for temper tantrums, and yet there he is, lying on the ground and thrashing his legs, emitting a siren scream.

And me? I should be able to whip a strategy out of my back pocket but I don’t have any. I give the audience apologetic looks.

Either that or I avoid eye contact. I’m like the kid who wears sunglasses to the doctor’s office: if I don’t see you, you don’t see me.

If a spectacle has no witnesses, can we be sure it actually occurred?

Yesterday I got a call in the middle of preschool: Angus was having another bad day. His teachers couldn’t calm him down and they didn’t know what else to try. I apologized—for his behaviour and my inability to proffer tips. In these situations, that’s about all I can do.

A childless friend asks: are you embarrassed? It’s not something another mother has ever asked me, probably because they can guess the answer and know it’s uncomfortable to admit it. It’s easier to be in denial.

Embarrassed of one’s child, of course not!

Yes, I’m embarrassed. If I’m standing off to the side of the congregation of parents, that is likely why. I’m imagining what you’re thinking: Learn to control your kid.

Angus has Autism. He has sensory issues.

Sitting in his classroom, Angus hears the conversations going on around him, the water through the pipes, the wind outside, the Lego falling out of the bucket, the pages of books being turned. It’s a lot to handle, sometimes too much. He wants to exercise some control of his environment. He wants to get up and move around, smash into things a little to calm his body down. He’s told “no,” and then he’s screaming. He’s on the floor and everyone’s staring at him and though he promised good behaviour just moments before, he’s not thinking about that now. He’s not really thinking at all.

Your kids have stories about my kid, or kids like him. The troublemakers. The ones who don’t stay criss-cross applesauced at circle time, the ones who treat an accidental bump on the playground like the end of the world. I know well the saying: “what other

Maternity & Beyond Laura TRUNKEY people think of you is none of your business” but what about what other people think of your child? Because I’ll admit, I spend a lot of time imagining how those stories go. And I spend way too much time worrying about your response. Worrying that to you my son is just that out-of-control child.

“I had bad behaviour,” Angus whispers to me sometimes when I pick him up from preschool. I’m thankful that he uses the word bad to describe his behaviour rather than to describe himself. Because Angus is a wonderful kid. I want you to see the hilarious jokester I see, the boy who wakes up singing, the one who leaps about with excitement at the prospect of a family hug.

I want you to have the opportunity to hear an invented-on-the-spot Dr. Seuss rhyme, or be serenaded with a Raffi ballad. I want you to know the other side of my son.

Maybe you can see that other side. Maybe you understand that the world’s not set up to serve all kids equally. That instead of being focussed on controlling kids like mine, we should instead search for the shine beneath their prickly exteriors. It’s there, I promise. And catching a glimpse is well worth the effort.

Laura Trunkey is mother to the amazing Angus and the author of a forthcoming short fiction collection from House of Anansi. Email laurajtrunkey@gmail.com.

Camps and Classes 250-386-8593 44 Island Parent Magazine

IslandParent.ca

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Business & Professional Directory

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• Licensed programs for 3 and 4 year olds • Part – time, flexible scheduling • 2.5 & 4 hour programs • Outdoor program options • Competitive rates, subsidy available • Qualified Early Childhood Educators Located at Saanich Neighbourhood Place, in Pearkes Recreation Centre

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totallearningservices2014@gmail.com March 2016 45

Biophilia & the Walbran Forest

H

ot August sunshine casts familiar shadows. High in the rainforest canopy, ancient limbs cool the temperatures of the forest floor for mushrooms, salamanders and salmon.

I lean my back against the gnarled skin of an old growth cedar.

My mind drifts. This tree was a sapling when the world’s first paper-printed money was created in the Sichuan Province of China by the Song Dynasty. This tree was standing at the time the Roman Empire collapsed. This tree knows a time when we humans thought the world was flat, and it would have lived through the Copernican Revolution, World War I, World War II, the invent of the lightbulb, the steam combustion engine, The Enlightenment, The Renaissance, The Industrial Revolution, global colonialism and then first contact of Indigenous Peoples and Europeans. This tree, in a few hours of labour and wages, could be bound for the southeastern U.S. or China. It could be cut in to shingles for homes in Florida. A thousand years of life ended in a matter of hours.

I look up towards the towering Castle Giant, an iconic tree that pierces high above the rest of the canopy ceiling. Incredibly, this living structure, hosting a myriad of other ecosystems in its branches, is only a three-hour drive and a 20-minute walk from our province’s legislative buildings in Victoria.

This ancient rainforest, in the traditional territory of the Nuu-chah-nulth; Pacheedaht, Dididaht First Nations, and Qwaba-diwa First Nation faces the rugged west coast just north of Port Renfrew. This area is home to the last old-growth rainforest ecosystems in southern Vancouver Island.

The Friends of Carmanah-Walbran is a network of people, many of whom represent the activists who led the fight to save the Walbran from logging in the 1990s. This network has maintained basic public access trails since then for locals, researchers and tourists alike to explore the emerald river pools, marble canyons and Big Tree trails that have inspired many generations. Many of these community leaders, now a little older, feel as if they have entered a time-warp. They have deja-vu of the 90s.

In the spring of 2015, flagging tape was found in the Walbran, and plans to systematically fracture this ancient forest was brought to into public awareness once more. It is hard to escape some of the stereotypes of loggers’ jobs vs. environmentalists’ endangered species dualism, mainly because governments don’t seem to understand the same argument that was made 20 years ago.

The ancient coastal temperate rainforest is one of the most complex terrestrial ecosystems on earth. There are entire species of bugs that only exist in the canopy of these trees. Furthermore there are entirely unique portfolios of interdependent species that exist in 60-metre layers moving vertically from the forest floor to the canopy. The mosaic of species is often completely different IslandParent.ca

Water Day

at 30 metres than the species found at 80 metres, like layers in a cake. Endangered Marbled Murrelets that feed on small fish in coastal bays, can only nest in the large mossy branches of old growth spruce and cedar. Northern Goshawks, Roosevelt Elk, local bear populations have so little natural

March 20

Bowen Park Complex 500 Bowen Rd

Qualicum Beach

Nature Notes

April 3

MARK WORTHING

Mark Worthing is a multidisciplinary activist, naturalist and journalist who has an affinity for the wilder landscapes of British Columbia. He works with Sierra Club BC, Greenpeace and the Sea to Cedar Foundation. Photos: Mark Worthing IslandParent.ca

10am - 5pm

Qualicum Commons 744 Primrose Ave

FREE COMMUNITY EVENTS Interactive Booths Workshops Speakers

Kids Activities habitat left for their species to persist, that the remaining five to seven per cent of old growth ecosystems left on Vancouver Island are vital to their survival.

As I walk the trail back to the bridge that spans Walbran Creek, I feel at home. I feel a deep yet conflicting sense of love and anxiety. I have an inherent connection to ecosystems like this, and I believe that all humans can access this feeling by disengaging from urban demands and listening to the wind rustle the branches of these trees.

I am anxious that these ecosystems will be logged without adequate consideration of the biodiversity and ecosystem values.

Erich Fromm coined the term biophilia in the 1960s, later popularized by natural historian and thinker Edward O. Wilson in his book on the subject. It refers to the inherent love of living ecosystems. It is the intrinsic desire to affiliate with other living things. Through human behaviour, we either foster or dampen our biophilia tendencies.

My fellow forest lovers accompany me, in indulging this biophilia. We crawl under massive wind-felled nurse logs, scamper over river rocks, and poke our head in to karst limestone caves that emanate a slight wind blowing from the depths of the cavernous earth below the forest silhouette against the sky. Holding a hand at the mouth of this cave, you can feel the Walbran’s breath.

I do love this place. And it helps restore my kinship beyond my humanoid companions.

I am at home here and I will fight for this wilderness to persist.

Nanaimo

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Artists

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Find out more at www.teamwatersmart.ca #RDNWaterDay

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Have you registered your child yet Register De Fuca Juan De Fuca Skating Clubfor hasCanSkate?

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MARCH 19-20,2016 Register online at www.tillicumkids.com to be entered into the Tillicum LEGO® Mania competition. As a contestant, you’ll have the opportunity to bring in your LEGO® masterpiece featuring this year’s theme Life in the Sea. Visit us online for more details.

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March 2016 47

Cut It Out!

Tips from Parent Educator Allison Rees of LIFE Seminars

Tell a ‘Relentless Positive Story’

O

ne of the problems with being a kid is that you have to rely on adults to understand what being a kid means.

Kids need somebody to tell a “relentless positive story” (a term coined by Dr. Darryl Stickel) about them no matter what they do. It’s easy to focus on the negative behaviour of a child and when that happens the behaviour gets worse. You feed it with your own stress and negative thinking. If you are spinning a negative story about your child, CUT IT OUT! When kids receive negative feedback, they begin to see themselves as the “bad one.” You simply can’t let that happen and if it does, it’s a mistaken approach by the adults. A child’s character should always be protected and not singled out in such a way that they get stuck in a role.

If your child does have some challenging behaviours, dig even deeper to emphasize the positive traits.

This is often seen amongst siblings as

48 Island Parent Magazine

one child quietly provokes the more intense child into hitting or yelling. Watch these patterns and don’t take sides. Catch your more reactive child when he is being tolerant or when he does something kind.

Watch the classroom as well. No child should be singled out day after day for challenging behaviour. It’s up to the adults to manage the triggers that the child might be experiencing. In order to do this, you have to get curious about where the challenges are coming from. Too often kids are just seen as having “bad behaviour” and that can quickly translate into, “You are bad.”

While there are many strategies to help our children, it has to start with the story you tell yourself. Kids feel what you think about them and they will easily play the part.

Children are impulsive because they are children. They make messes because they have fun in the moment. They can be aggressive because children have problems using their words. They don’t always follow

instructions because they don’t understand time. They can act silly when they are excited. Maturity takes care of these things and in the meantime, create that relentless positive story. No matter what, hold onto your version of how wonderful a child is. Yes, you can work with specific behaviours but that story stays the same.

LIFE Seminars has two books available, Sidestepping the Power Struggle and The Parent Child Connection. See lifeseminars.com.

IslandParent.ca

Easter Bunnies

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Spring Break Camp (6 –12 years) Horseback Riding Camp (6 –13 years) World Cup Soccer Camp(6 –12 years) Spring Break Spectacular Swims (daily 1 p.m. – 3:30 p.m.)

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