The hermmes parents’ training
Parents are the primary educators of their children. Not only are they chronologically the first but also potentially have the most impact on their children’s physical and mental development over many years. This is also true for media education – digital and non-digital alike.
Whether we like it or not, parents, but also other family members such as grandparents, older siblings or other relevant adults in a child’s upbringing, are decisive role models for the children in their care and the old instructional expression: “Do as I say but don’t do as I do!” simply doesn’t work as children learn a lot more through observation and imitation than from verbal instruction.
It would, however, be too simplistic to assume that children only learn through observation and that if we adults behave in the way we wish them to behave, all will be good and they’ll “automatically” adopt positive habits. Therefore, our project offers various possibilities on how parents, guardians, teachers, and all other educators can engage and deepen their understanding of media education in different areas.
What to expect?
The HERMMES series “Parents for a healthy digital education” offers examples of holistic parental media education. It is a collection of inspiring short stories from parental everyday life which give examples of how parents can engage with their children (of different ages) supporting a healthy, holistic media education in manageable and meaningful ways. Organised by age groups, these examples refer to analogue as well as digital media and will relate to all areas of the HERMMES curriculum. The focus lies on offering things to do – rather than pointing out what not to do – with short explanations.
The HERMMES “Door openers” are everyday life stories about problematic digital media use that were created to start the conversation on a specific topic. They can be read individually or, preferably, read out during a meeting, before starting a discussion on how the narrative could continue, what possible or probable solutions might exist.
Within the HERMMES project, we have already offered webinars to parents and will continue to do so after the lifetime of the project. This has proven to be an efficient way to reach out to parents, guardians, and other family members who can join from anywhere in the world. By recording webinars and other online meetings and making those recordings available, aneven wider public can be reached. If a participant wishes to build their own webinars for their own audience and in their shared language, we also provide guidance.
Want to participate?
The HERMMES online trainings are hosted on the E-Learning Waldorf (elewa) platform. In order to access the training, you just need to create an account and start your journey!