Senior Emma Malleck holds little girl during family studies in the wrestling room last fall semester. Students this semester will start to interact with little kids January 31st.
Family Studies gives students opportunity to interact with kids
Family Studies is a course designed to prepare students for the role of parenting, introduce childcare as a career, and help students learn more about children and their development.
The semester class is offered to juniors and seniors. This spring, there are two family studies classes taught by instructor Sue Ann Tebo, with 28 students in each class.
According to Tebo, the class is geared more towards family, raising children and child development, making it a good class for everyone.
Tebo’s main goal right now is to prepare students over what to expect and safety for when preschoolers come into the class. The little kids will start coming into class Jan. 31.
“We have little ones come in every Thursday and Friday,” Tebo said. “On the days we don’t have little kids coming in we cover content and curriculum.”
When little kids come in they do many activities like crafts, read books, play in the gym/wrestling room, eat snacks, etc.
Through the semester the class goes over topics such as becoming a parent, family structure, prenatal development and birth, nurturing and bonding with infants, growth and development of ages and stages, nutrients, health, safe environments, discipline and guidance, abuse and neglect, family crisis, childcare needs and balancing work and family.
“What I like most about teaching family studies would be getting the students really excited about the life of parenting and just sharing the knowledge with them and seeing how excited they are,” Tebo said.
The students of this semester’s class will also be able to work on a service project. Last year’s class did a service project with options where they made 25 emergency care kit bags, each bag containing 25 different items. The semester prior to that did a diaper drive for the First Call for Help.
“I share several different ideas with the students for service projects,” Tebo said. “Then I let them choose because I feel like if it is student-driven there’s a whole lot more buy-in.”
22nvuong@usd489.com