Kids at Edge Esmeralda – Part 2
More on programming & ground rules!
We are delighted that so many families are coming to Edge Esmeralda!
Since we published Kids at Edge Esmeralda – Part 1, we wanted to share more detail about how kids will be integrated into the community. This post includes:
Our kid-oriented programming
Ground rules & expectations
I. Kids programming
What we’re building at Edge Esmeralda is an experiment when it comes to creating an intellectual environment that is also family-friendly. We also hope that families and people without kids will be interested in initiating experiments regarding education. If that’s your case, learn more about the Education Track we’re organizing here.
Weekdays: camps, toddlers program, & babysitters club
Local camps: Attendees have collaborated on a list of camp options they’ve found happening in the Healdsburg area, and you’re welcome to coordinate camps and carpools with other parents so that your kids get to spend time with other EE kids. We’re especially excited about the art camp that Kelly, an art teacher living in Healdsburg, has put together for 3-5 year olds!
Toddlers’ program: Liz—one of the Esmeraldans who’s a mother, a former school teacher, and currently an ML engineer…”—is also organizing a toddlers’ program with various activities for parents to lead with her. You can sign up directly in her spreadsheet, which she posted in the Kids topic of the attendee group chat1.
Babysitters club: Finally, we are setting up a babysitting program for parents and non-parents to volunteer to take care of people’s children. Again, this is an experiment, and we’re hoping to keep developing this program as the weeks go! Learn more in our attendee group chat2 in the Kids topic.
Weekends: Adventure Days & Learning Days
While we expect parents to be self-organizing during the week, the weekends are going to be filled by interesting activities facilitated by our community.
Adventure Days: Every Saturday, we will be enjoying an Adventure Day open to all, to gorgeous locations in nature. You can have a look and sign up by using the search engine on our programming tool and looking up “Adventure Day”. (Note: you need to be signed in with the email address you bought tickets with in order to get the location details of the event and to sign up.)
Saturday, June 8: Spring Lake
Saturday, June 15: Doran Beach
Friday, June 21 - Sunday, June 23: Camping Weekend in the redwoods
Learning Days: Every Sunday, the Community Center of Healdsburg is opening its doors for us. We’ll have weekly art sessions (open to all, as intergenerational experiences are key to Esmeralda’s culture!), and many more kid-friendly activities that the people of the community will be able to add to the calendar. If you are interested in proposing an activity yourself, read more here.
Community dinners from Sunday to Thursday
Childcare: We have hired staff to support childcare during the dinners, so that parents can enjoy some time with the rest of the community.
Kid-friendly design: We’ll be offering kid-friendly food, and the dinners will be held from 5:30-7:30pm so that children can head to sleep at a reasonable time.
II. Ground rules
One of the goals of this event is for kids & families to be more integrated into a community, following the adage “It takes a village to raise a child”. However, we also understand that different families are going to have different boundaries and expectations, from how they want people to interact with their kids, to attending talks and events with their little one.
As a baseline, we expect from both events organizers and parents to include kids into community activities as much as possible. That said, it’s not a requirement that every single event or session include kids by any means. When using Social Layer, our programming tool, you can filter out the events using the tag “Family-friendly” which will help parents to figure out which activities they can participate in with their child.
When it comes to community events like dinners, while we have trained staff for childcare to support, we ask parents not to be completely “hands-off” and to intervene if their child is crying or generally being disruptive for the wellbeing of the community.
Regarding boundaries, each family is responsible to directly communicate with anyone interacting with their children in a way they aren’t comfortable with.
We also want to give a platform to parents to share their opinions. In the Kids topic in the attendee group chat3, parents will find a collaborative document we shared to add onto this policy. Again, we want this to be a co-created experience, so we look forward to knowing what you are thinking regarding these topics and more!
We are just a couple of days away from the beginning of Edge Esmeralda! If you need help or have questions regarding kids programming, email zelda@edgecity.live for support.
The private attendee group chat is hosted in Telegram (a messaging app similar to WhatsApp or iMessage). You can find the link to join the chat in your Edge Esmeralda acceptance email.
See footnote 1, above. 🙂
See footnote 1, above. 🙂
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