Parenthood: When is the right time?
February 07, 2007
The Baby Think It Over
Program™ was instituted at MdCV High School during the
second nine-week grading period of Parenting Class, taught by
Family and Consumer Science (FACS) teacher Brenda Snyder. This is
about the sixth or seventh year that Mrs. Snyder has utilized the
program to help young adults explore the physical, emotional,
social, and financial consequences of teen parenthood.
From an overall perspective, the project prompts teens to consider
three important facts about babies: ♦ Babies’ demands are
unpredictable and must be met promptly. ♦ Babies require a
great deal of time and attention. ♦ Babies change a parent’s life
profoundly.
The core of the program centers around a vinyl, life-size infant
simulator, weighing approximately 7-1/2 pounds or the average size
of a human baby. During the simulation activity, a student
accepts the challenge of caring for this “baby,” taking it
everywhere they go -- to home and to classes. Class participant
Kayla Reece said, “It’s hard because you had to carry your
books and the kid, and the kid in the carrier and the diaper
bag.”
Mrs. Snyder gives school faculty advance warning that the “baby”
may occasionally disrupt a class, but this it is part of the
realization process for students to truly understand the full
implications involved in having and taking complete responsibility
for a child.
Reece added, “You get strange looks when you
go out in public with it.” She noted that when she took the “baby”
to Buzzard’s in Lyndon, “Everyone was like ‘You’re too young to
have a baby.’” And when they discovered it was not a real baby,
they would ask, “Why are carrying around a fake baby?” and she
would then explain that it was for a class project.
According to Mrs. Snyder, the “baby” will electronically cry at
random, unpredictable times, 24 hours a day. This cry requires a
timely response from the “baby’s” caretaker, signaling the student
to care for the “baby” by inserting and turning a care key in its
back. A care key is used in the
“baby's” back rather than a bottle in the ‘baby's” mouth to
reinforce the fact that a baby does not cry only when it is
hungry.
When the care key is inserted, the “baby” stops crying within a few
seconds. The care key must be held in place from 1 to 30 minutes,
approximating the amount of time needed to bathe, feed, hold, or
otherwise tend to the general needs of an infant. The “baby” will
also cry if held in a position it does not like, or if it is
roughly handled or its head not supported.
At the end of the simulation phase, the “baby” generates a
computerized report for the teacher, indicating how many times the
caretaker left the baby crying for more than a minute, or if its
head is not supported.
As part of the project, students also keep a journal of when they
changed the “baby’s” clothes and changed the “baby’s” diaper. “And
Mrs. Snyder will notice if the baby is wearing the same clothes,”
Kayla remarked.
Besides helping students to determine when they are ready to have
children, the class examines the developmental stages of a child,
including the gestation period, the birth experience, as well as
the proper nutrition and care of an infant.
“The experience makes you not want to
have kids … for a while,” said Kayla.
Students who choose not to participate in the simulation
activity are given an alternate assignment to complete.
Birth of the
program
Prior to the “Baby Think It Over”
program, students in a Parenting class may have been given an egg
or sack of flour to carry around with them, to somehow simulate the
action of caring for an infant. Although that egg may have been
fragile like a baby or the sack may have been as heavy as an
infant, neither cried at inopportune times or woke its caregiver in
the middle of the night.
Watching a TV
show about teens learning to care for “babies” using the egg and
sack methods, Rick and Mary Jurmain of Eau Claire, Wisconsin, noted
a lack of realism in that type of experience. This fostered an idea
which eventually led Rick to develop a prototype in his garage – a
product that would more realistically simulate a baby’s constant
and unpredictable demand for attention. From that idea came the
birth in 1994 of the Baby Think It Over ProgramTM
The “babies” come in either gender, and with Caucasian, Hispanic,
Asian, African-American, Light-Skinned African-American, and Native
American appearances. Additional accessories to make the parenting
experience more realistic include a stroller, diaper bag, infant
car seat and carrier, birth certificates, and T-shirts.
