With the goal of providing some education to parents on how to encourage development in their kids, Chestermere’s Parent Link Centre hosted its fourth annual Play Day.
“Today went really really well,” said Parent Link Early Childhood Community Coordinator Suzan Jensen.
The play day geared towards kids up to five-years-of-age attracted over 100 kids and their parents or guardians to the recreation centre Nov. 18.
“We were extremely happy with the turnout and the fun and excitement that all of the kids were having,” she said.
Held just before National Child’s Day on Nov. 20, the play day provided parents of young children a place to come out and have fun and to see what supports and resources are available in the community.
“That’s the ultimate goal…to give all the tools and resources to parents so that they can go home and have a better understanding of what they can do as parents to encourage healthy development,” said Jensen.
Current research in Alberta shows that about one in four children have difficulty in one of the five domains of development.
The domains are: social competence, language and thinking skills, physical health and well-being, emotional maturity and communication skills and general knowledge.
The most recent statistics available for the Chestermere, Dalroy and Conrich region are from 2014 and show the percentage of kindergarten children having trouble in each area of development.
The three highest areas of difficulty are communication skills and general knowledge, with 37.5 per cent, emotional maturity with 26.4 per cent and physical health and well-being with 25.9 per cent.
To help parents, each station at the play day was labeled with which area of development the activity helps.
“We want parents to know these results and know what they can be doing to encourage better results,” said Jensen.
She encourages any parents that weren’t able to attend the play day with their kids to go online to the Parent Link website to see what resources are available locally.
The Parent Link website is at chestermere.ca in the city services menu.
