Playcentre Mums

Thanks Linzy

We only do one day a week, otherwise I would go crazy with that type of commitment.
I think when it comes to training it depends on your centre and how motivated your education officer is. I have heard stories where you can get guilted into do your courses as fast as possible in some centres but our is really easy going and I don't feel forced at all.
In saying that I do think that it should be a requirement to get course 1 because it
is really easy and it does help a lot with numbers. It is really up to you what kind of comittment you can make to playcentre, and I know that at ours we would understand that a working mum like you is unable to do that much.

It's better for the kids to go 2 days a week its not compulsory. Every Playcentre is different and in Akl there are different Associations and they all do things differently as well.

I go to Greenhithe which is part of North Shore Association where Course 2 is compulsory that's not the case for West Auckland.

I'm quite keen to do some of the training, I like learning about the processed behind DS's play.

To be honest I found it all too much time commitment and pressure when I went back to work 3 days a week. And that was with only one session of pc per week. So we ended up leaving, and it was such a relief not to have that pressure! It may be fine when you first start, but once you are one of the more long term members the pressure can really come on to do training and take on a "job" or more than one jobs. I found between monthly meetings, fundraising, term clean ups, courses and the odd other meeting or family evening it was just too much for me -- let alone them wanting me to have a position to do more work.

In saying that the kids loved it, and I did enjoy my time there. I was a bit sad to leave .... but I much prefer to do other things on my days off with the kids now (they spend enough time at daycare doing those sorts of activities anyway).

We just go one day a week too. One thing I've really noticed is the variation between PCs. We did SPACE at one PC but attend another - because we already knew a lot of parents that went to that one - and they are quite different. I've visited another one in this area and it's different again.

We only go one day a week, which is my only day off work. I really like it as our daughter is really used to getting up and going out each morning, and so PC gives us the structure to do that each Friday.

We started when she was about 14 months, only a few visits in the last term of last year, and started full time beginning of this year. I have a couple of jobs but both of them are really easy and/or enjoyable things to do - one is doing the shopping which I like as i can decide what gets bought! and the other is a longer term gardening project which is really fun. I don't find the time commitment huge at all. We still leave before session finishes quite often as she struggles to last till 12.30 and still get to sleep when we get home - otherwise is over-hyped and doesn't sleep at all which I don't enjoy on my ONE day off. Nobody minds. It's all swings and roundabouts; we are there for opening & set up and do a few tidying/cleaning jobs before we go. I did course 1 quite early but because we'd been through SPACE, I'd already done most of it.

It's a pretty informal playcentre - no set times for food or anything, no meetings on session (except the odd occasion for something urgent), not much pressure to do the courses. A few of the mums are really good at setting up new art things each time, and we have something called REAP here which pays for various people to come in and do special activities sometimes - eg we've been doing spin art and stenciling things this term.

She really enjoys it now. It took her a while to get used to the numbers of kids, and the noise (we have a few 3-4 yr old boys that hoon around the place) but she gets to play with so much stuff we don't have at home, and she has a few 'friends' now that she hangs about with. She's quite independent now so me, and most of the mums actually, get lots of time to sit around and chat while keeping half an eye on potential trouble areas. The sandpit often ends up being a nice warm sunny spot to chat and 'supervise'.

E and I are doing SPACE at the moment, I love it. It's more for me than her at this age. I think we probably will do the PC thing once she's a year old.