Parenting Class!

As a freshman you get to take Child Development as an elective class but now that I’m a sophomore this year, and that means I can take Parenting class! It’s a lot of fun, even though you talk about having babies and stuff! You learn a lot about children and your future as a possible parent. There are mostly girls in parenting class, but the boys that are in the class are pretty funny and get grossed out most of the time!

            Parenting class teaches you some really valuable stuff about becoming a parent. It gives you information about financial costs, relationships, and child care. It really opens your eyes about kids and the way they act and develop. The class really helps you by teaching you that children are hard work and to wait until you are ready to have any. It also teaches you about teens that are parents and how it is difficult for them to support their children without support from parents and friends. It taught me that I definitely don’t want to be a teen mother or a mother any time soon! Not that being a teen mother is bad, but it’s difficult and I’m definitely not responsible enough to become one.

            Another big part of parenting is taking home the babies. That’s mostly the reason why people take that class to begin with! Every start of the year, the parenting class has to take home babies over a weekend. I take home a baby this weekend! I can’t wait, but I’m so nervous because I don’t think I can handle it! Good thing we can have a babysitter! You get a due date, and then you get to find out what you’re having! When you find out whether it’s a boy or girl, you get to name your baby! The babies are practically real. You get handed a bracelet, and that bracelet is used to care for the baby. Without the bracelet, the baby doesn’t know who’s taking care of it so it won’t work! They cry like a real baby, they have to get fed and changed; they even have to be rocked for a long time just like a real baby. The babies are so realistic because before they made this program, they took diaries from real mothers and their real babies and they put the diary schedule into the fake simulator babies we have to take home. You get graded on the babies after your weekend is over. It’s a big part of your final grade in that class. You have to take care of the babies like they are real. If you put the baby down too hard or drop its neck back, it’ll show up as neglect or abuse and you will get points taken off. It’s quite the challenge. None of the babies have the same schedule! They all cry and need different things at different times. You also have to make sure you don’t forget anything before you leave school for the weekend; you have to have a bottle, clothes, blankets, diapers, your car seat, and the bracelets that allow you to take care of the baby.