By Niki Kottmann
Wyoming Tribune-Eagle, Cheyenne
WWR Article Summary (tl;dr) A group of moms who call themselves “MOPS” (Moms of Preschoolers), have started a new series of online meetings for their kids to connect.
CHEYENNE
Imagine being a 6-year-old girl staying home from school and your beloved gymnastics practices during a pandemic, and a family with a 5-year-old daughter moves into the house behind yours. All you want is to grab your favorite toy, skip around the corner and knock on her door, but you’re not allowed to leave your house to visit her’s.
That’s the situation for Melanie Silvernagel’s oldest child, and it breaks her heart having to say “no” whenever her daughter begs to go play with her new neighbor. What gives Silvernagel hope, however, is watching her daughter spend quality time with her new friend with a backyard fence in between them.
“Kids are really resilient,” she said. “I think they’re more resilient than we think they are going to be, or more than we give them credit for.”
Silvernagel and Valerie Reiber are two leaders of MOPS (Moms of Preschoolers), a moms’ group at Cheyenne Hills Church, and on March 19, they started a new series of online meetings for their kids to connect. The pair took to Zoom to start hosting virtual playdates once a month, and now the online events are open to not only church members, but any families with kids who are in need of some quality time with peers.
The first playdate included a GoNoodle movement session, which Silvernagel said was a big hit.
“All the kids saw their friends and were screaming over each other to say hi and show each other their toys,” she said. “It was adorable.”
Since then, their gatherings in front of their respective screens have included a virtual storytime and indoor scavenger hunt, the latter of which required the kids to find something shiny, soft, round, etc. around their house, then scurry back to the camera to share their treasured findings.
“As much as our group focuses on the support and gathering of mothers, it’s also there to help our children develop friendships with each other,” Reiber said. “We realized they are struggling just as much as we are, and want to still see their friends.”
The group of moms — which typically includes between 30 and 35 women — always meets once a week. But the first week of the month is always a leadership meeting, the second and fourth is always a mom-only session, and the third is a playdate. Recently, the moms enjoyed a virtual paint night, gardening presentation from an employee of the University of Wyoming Extension’s College of Agriculture and Natural Resources, as well as a presentation from Becky Lauridsen, a counselor and founder of IOME, a company that offers “guilt-free self-care.”
“Not the indulgent part of self-care — (the presentation covered) things like getting up earlier than your kids and having time to sit and read the Bible or work out or have your coffee alone so you’re still taking care of yourself.”
It’s essential for parents to take care of themselves right now, Silvernagel said, because otherwise they won’t have the energy to be fully present for their families. Reiber agreed, adding that it’s also a great time for members to find creative ways to stay in touch with one another and be supportive fellow moms.
“You can’t pour from an empty cup, but you can pour negative if everything is all doom and gloom,” Silvernagel said. “Have something positive to pour out to your kids.”
As for the kids, keeping in touch with friends is its own form of self-care — they just need a little help from their parents to do it.
“It’s a beautiful thing to watch your children learn to interact this way,” Reiber said. “Yes, it’s great to have the physical break during the day, a little bit of breathing room during what would normally be a busy schedule and demanding day. It also gives us the opportunity to watch our children grow.”
“I think it’s probably helping them see they’re not the only ones who are having virtual playdates or not being able to go to school or things like that,” Silvernagel added. “And I hope that it gives more of a connection to virtual things — so for us adults, we’ve become so disconnected (because) we don’t have to interact with somebody to see their lives, we just scroll, so I’m hoping for our kids, this gives more meaning to anything virtual that they do.”
Community is something all humans crave, Reiber pointed out, so she’s happy to use this stressful time as a means of teaching her kids the importance of checking in on one another.
“It doesn’t matter if you’re in your mid-40s or if you’re 4, that desire for community is still there,” she said. “I think that even if that means virtual community for now, it gives them an opportunity to learn a new way to get that human need that they have.”
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Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
