(Vermont Square) Parent-Child Mother Goose Program

The Parent-Child Mother Goose Program® is a joyful, physically close and interactive program in which parents and children learn to share the power and pleasure of oral rhymes, songs, and stories. The approach is backed by decades of research, yet is so simple and natural that parents easily gain skills and confidence that foster healthy relationships and help them give their children experiences that promote healthy brain development, which peaks by the age of three and is largely set for life. All children’s early experiences mold their brains, and the primary caregiver provides most of those experiences. The caregiver’s choice of words, tone of voice, gestures, facial expressions, holding, and cuddling lay the neurological foundation for the child’s lifelong emotional, physical, and cognitive health.

Parent-Child Mother Goose delivers the culturally sensitive and adaptable program at no charge and although the program benefits ALL families, prioritizes any families at risk. Participants may be single teens, isolated newcomers with little English, Indigenous families in isolated communities, or may suffer from abuse, addiction, poverty, or post-partum depression; some may even have lost their children to institutional care. The program creates a warm, embracing little community that is a lifeline to isolated families.

Parent-Child Mother Goose also manages the training and certification process for Parent-Child Mother Goose Program teachers nation-wide and internationally. By providing training to full-time staff from other agencies, the organization has enabled Parent-Child Mother Goose programs for many thousands of parents, babies and toddlers in every province in Canada as well as Australia, China, U.S., Iran, and Ecuador. Program languages include Indigenous languages, English, French, Spanish, Somali, Farsi, Mandarin, and ASL.