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Useful information for new arrivals:
The Swansea Parent Group meets every Thursday at the Department for Adult Continuing Education (DACE) room 124, Glyndwr Building at Swansea University. View Map
Parents are not obliged to attend each and every meeting. The meetings last from 10.00am to 2.00pm and do not take place during the school holidays.
The purpose of the group meetings is to provide parents with information and existing support systems available to them. It also gives the participating parents an opportunity to survey the existing policy and provision so as to provide input to the preparation of the City and European Guides for Parents and New Immigrant Families.
The group meetings are for parents living in Swansea and new parents are always welcomed to join. The benefits of attending these meetings for the participating parents include:
- Attending workshops on parenting issues
- Learning how to use Skype to communicate with other people via computer.
- Learning how to use information technology such as computers and emails to enable the new arrivals communicate with their families and friends around the world;
- Helping parents to identify good and inexpensive places to get their provisions and take their families and share the same experience via the website by use of video and photographs;
- Helping parents to identify available sources of support for parents within Swansea and posting the same information on the website;
- Helping parents to link up with other organisations that work with parents;
For more information, please contact the following:
Latefa -
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or
Judith -
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Tel. - +44 (0) 1792 295795
6 weeks workshop with a group of parents in YMCA
Facilitator: Hoppi Wimbush
Coordinator:Latefa Guemar
Continuing the theme of communication, valuing self, and expanding the emotional vocabulary, parenting workshops focused on practicing using and expanding emotional and expressive vocabulary and we introduced metaphorical language eg “feeling blue” to depict sadness. We expanded our self awareness by becoming conscious of the difference between thoughts, feelings and behaviours. We explored how negative thoughts affect the way we feel, and the way we behave. And conversely how positive thoughts affect how we feel and behave. We looked into what stops us from thinking positive thoughts and how, if we were our own best friend, we could help our own attitude become more positive.
This was the last gathering of this particular series of workshops.
The group took a vote on the theme for the next five workshops and choose to focus on “play and child development.”
The following pages contain information for parents based on the work carried out during this workshop.
Joy (mild) satisfied, glad, funny, happy, smiley good, content, (middle) fulfilled, peaceful, harmony, chuffed, excited, alive (strong) Exhilarated, exuberant, brilliant, marvellous, fantastic, superb, lush.
Anger (mild) irritated, frustrated, agitated, naked, grumpy (middle) mad, cross, angry, (Strong) raging, furious, outraged,
Sadness (mild) unhappy, sad, blue, melancholy, disappointed (middle) empty, miserable, depressed (strong) Grieving, despairing, distraught,
Fear (mild) Nervous, worried, anxious (middle) panic, shocked, frightened, fretful (strong) petrified, terrified,
We suggest that parents continue to build a vocabulary and use this to empathise and connect with their children.
In this way children feel very “met” and understood in their feeling life which is the basis of our being.
Metaphors that we use to express how we feel include…:
Green with envy
Seeing red,
Red rag to a bull,
feeling blue,
I am an optimist (seeing the good in future things),
You are a pessimist! (Seeing the bad in future things),
We are optimistic. (Seeing the good in future things),
feeling under the weather (not feeling well),
my batteries are flat (I have no energy),
I need to re-charge my batteries (I need to rest),
I’m feeling on top of the world (all these express feelings of extreme happiness),
I’m over the moon,
I’m on cloud,
I’m walking on air,
Out of this world ie “the film was “out of this world”…(brilliant),
I’m tamping (welsh for angry),
I’m mad as a dog
Mad, as a hatter (crazy),
Can’t see the wood for the trees (confused, lost),
I’m in a fog (same),
I’ve got a screw loose (I’m a little crazy).
These ones are often used by children: Cowardy, cowardy custard (you’re not brave and too scared to do something),
Yellow-bellied (same),
Scaredy cat (same).
After exploring our thoughts, feelings and behaviours, we asked “what stops us from feeling joy and happiness most of the time. We sifted through the points made below and realised that many we couldn’t change because they are the way life is…but two things we could change…”pessimism and bad mentality” So we continued and we explored if we had a very best friend and they spoke to us saying things that made us feel strong, good about ourselves, and made us feel loved and valued, what might they say? We then imagined that this friend was actually our own thoughts and that we were our own very best friend…
The group came up with the following ways that thoughts like these would affect the way we feel and the way we behave: To round off this series of workshops, we voted on a range of accredited courses and chose to explore “Play and Child Development” for the next 5 workshops starting Thursday 14th January.
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The Parenting Project 
