As the puppets came out and the music started up, 2-year-old Iyesha Pramudyasworo looked on, wide-eyed and hesitant.
Staying close by her mother’s side, Iyesha watched intently while a tiger and bear, crocodile and pig – perched on the hands of others – launched into the morning’s first song.
“There’s a spider on your face, on your face,” the group sang, with moms playfully tickling the chins of their toddlers.
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Before too long, Iyesha set out to explore, joining parenting educator Rocio Gormley on a blanket in the grass, then stomping to the dinosaur march and swinging to the hokey-pokey – even pausing at one point to hug a smaller tot.
To Iyesha’s mom, the morning represented more than song and dance.
After three or four months in the Musical Motion program at Parenting Matters in Sarasota, Iyesha was showing significant signs of learning and growth.
Born a month prematurely, Iyesha exhibited developmental delays as an infant in crawling and later in speech, said her mother, Erica Pramudyasworo, 42, of Sarasota. What’s more, because Pramudyasworo had had to return to work as a caregiver right after Iyesha’s birth, she brought Iyesha with her.
“Child care is so expensive, you’re basically working to pay for child care,” she said.
Surrounded by adults at Pramudyasworo’s job for the first part of her life, Iyesha was not demonstrating emotions or affection. Pramudyasworo and her husband thought she might be autistic.
But through the stimulation at Musical Motion and at-home support offered by Parenting Matters, Iyesha is now interacting and loving on the smaller babies, she said. Her physical and speech abilities have soared, with Iyesha now talking and walking.
“These programs are amazing,” she added. “I can’t say enough about them.”
For many stay-at-home moms and working parents who can’t access or afford preschool or expensive child care centers with early learning curriculums, community programs like Musical Motion provide crucial alternatives for children from birth to age 5 – known to be a critical stage in child cognitive and physical development.
Complementing a bevy of support services that Parenting Matters offers caregivers – from personalized home visits to coaching on potty training, nutrition or discipline strategies – Musical Motion promotes development through proven early learning tools: music and play.
“Studies show that dancing and rhythm help develop brain and spatial awareness,” said Bridget Harry, development director for Parenting Matters.
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And Musical Motion is not just for the kids, she added. Available in English and Spanish throughout Manatee County for 17 years and recently expanding into Sarasota County, the program provides parental education and a system of social support for many isolated stay-at-home moms.
Not only do moms and dads compare notes on what they’re going through, but parenting educators like Gormley and Jenny McConachy teach them activities and approaches they can employ at home to help build their children’s motor, literacy and learning skills.
Pramudyasworo says she relishes the support from other moms and also the guidance from parenting educators on how to respond to Iyesha.
“Sometimes I want to scream, I don’t know what to do or what she’s trying to tell me,” she said.
In addition to the role that comes with play in learning, it also helps children bond with parents and other primary caregivers, said Laura Josephson, parenting education director at Forty Carrots Family Center.
Forty Carrots offers Partners in Play at libraries in Manatee and Sarasota counties throughout the year. It also runs a preschool, free summer pre-kindergarten and multiple programs for parenting education and child and family therapy.
Partners in Play, free to the public, is open to the first 10 families who arrive at the libraries for the one-hour sessions.
Geared for children from birth to age 5, the primary caregivers play on the floor with the children, with fun activities and songs that focus on the development of language, cognitive, motor and emotional development, she said
“Between the ages of 0 and 5, that is a child’s job,” Josephson said about play. “That is how they learn.”
In addition to early learning, the focused exploration through play builds important emotional bonds.
“It creates that attachment to their parents,” she said.
During that hour, parenting educators also take time to talk to caregivers about family issues or developmental questions, with free follow-up consultations available for serious matters, if necessary.
Like Musical Motion, Partners in Play makes early learning programs available for many families that can’t access or afford expensive childcare centers and preschools.
“We know that 91% of the children who attend our group programs do not attend other early learning programs before kindergarten,” Josephson said.
Many are working families whose incomes are too high to qualify for government subsidies but not enough to afford to pay for child care out of pocket, especially amid current skyrocketing rents and other rising costs of living, she said.
“Sometimes child care and preschool become just a little out of reach,” added Forty Carrots’ chief program officer, Carla Johanns.
For Fabiola Cigarroa, 35, the community programs are a godsend. She and 13-month-old Gael joined Iyesha and her mother on a recent morning at Musical Motion.
They also attend programs at the libraries, finding those at child care centers to be too expensive, Cigarroa said.
“Because he’s our first child, we don’t have other ideas,” she said about how she and her husband felt limited before they began learning from the programs and other moms to help their son thrive. They’ve seen a difference in him since she started bringing him to Musical Motion the past five months.
“He’s more sociable now, he’s extroverted,” she said in Spanish about Gael.
What’s more, the scheduling at the various sites works great y with the family’s schedule.
“It’s not in the middle of nap time,” she said. “It’s perfect.”
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This story comes from a partnership between the Sarasota Herald-Tribune and the Community Foundation of Sarasota County. Saundra Amrhein covers the Season of Sharing campaign, along with issues surrounding housing, utilities, child care and transportation in the area. You can be reached at samrhein@gannett.com.