Week 8: My Support System

The past 8 weeks I have been part of a wonderful collaborative learning community. We all have been supportive of each other throughout the 8 weeks. I have enjoyed all the support from my colleagues. My colleagues have been so supportive in giving me feedback on my discussions and blog assignments. They have given me helpful information on early childhood by sharing their experiences, and knowledge in the field. They all have been so positive in communication with me. I loved how they would praise me for my discussions and blog assignments. But most importantly all my colleagues were always ready to help with anything I needed as it related to what we were studying. I too have done the same for my colleagues, and hope they continue to be successful in their journey to reach their educational goals.

Adjourning Phase

I was thinking about the 5 stages of team development: forming, storming, norming, performing, and adjourning. When thinking about all the groups I’ve been apart of there’s one that stands out that was the hardest to say goodbye to. The group is my first Head Start Center I worked at for 6 years it was 10 of us who worked there and we grew to be very close with each other. We were a team that would help each other out no matter what situation came our way. Not only were we a close team at work, but we were a close group of friends outside of work. We spent everyday at work together and had seen each of us grow, some of us had children for the first time, got married , got divorced you name it we had seen each other grow. It wasn’t till May of 2009 that our company lost their Head Start grant and we would not be coming back to work in August of 2009. So May was our last month we would be working together, and on the last day of May in 2009 was the hardest goodbye I had to do. It was so emotional when it came for us to close our center that day. We all cried and promised to keep in touch with each other. I don’t think I had ever had a hard good-bye since leaving my Head Start group in 2009.

Strategies Used To Resolve Conflict or Disagreements

So I was thinking of disagreements, and conflicts I’m currently experiencing for this week’s assignment and only one came into mind, which is my conflict with my husband on helping me more with house duties and taking children to sports practice. My husband is a truck driver, and his route just changed from going to work at 5am to being at work at 3am till 4pm, which I totally understand is tiring for someone. Not only can it be exhausting for him, but I can see how when he gets home he just wants to shower and go to sleep or lay down and rest, but myself a working wife as a Head Start director for two sites with many responsibilities, a mother of two that are involved in many sports they are dedicated to, which means mom is taking them to their practices, and mommy also in school for her master’s degree, so many late nights of homework. So I too struggle with being tired, and exhausted from work, running around with the children, staying up late doing my online classes and having to be up early open centers at 7:15 am, and let’s not forget kids ready for school and pickup from grandma. So yes housework, cleaning, washing clothes, and grocery shopping etc. gets overwhelming for me and as much as I would love to come home sleep, relax, and watch television it’s just not that easy for me. So this is a conflict my husband and I were having that not only is it tiring for him to do all he does, but it is tiring for me as well to do all I do, and that I needed for us to come to some type of compromise on how we can help each other out with all the errands, housework, cleaning etc. and most importantly being there for our children. So I suggested that we split everything in half , I’ll take our daughter to gymnastics classes and softball practices, and he take our son to basketball practices and his conditioning workouts, also I’ll do the washing, dinner, sweeping and mopping, and he will do the folding,  putting the clothes away, and ironing the kids clothes for school. And pretty much I’ll do the rest. Although we both were on different paths we spoke to each other with respect, and listened to what each of us had to say. Our communication let to a solution, and because we respect each other we were able to make things work for us, and help each other out with all our daily routines in our daily lives, and our family life.