La Joya Paediatrics launched their website www.lajoyamd.com and their latest outreach programme, titled "A Hand To Hold", on Friday, May 27.

The website is intended to offer help with parenting by providing information on such issues as children's developmental stages and health care, as well as useful methods of parenting.

It also attempts to network organisations that are valuable to parents. There are links to The Informative Breastfeeding Service (TIBS) website, Trinidad and Tobago Innovative Parenting Support (TTIPS), and the Love and Logic Institute, which provides training and training materials in their unique Love and Logic approach to raising children.

Dr Rose Marie Thomas is the paediatrician behind La Joya Paediatrics, La Joya Paediatrics Resource Centre (LJPRC), and now the website. She says that her job goes beyond seeing to the health of her patients. "Parents want information from their paediatrician on how to parent and help their children learn."

Most of the problems parents bring to her are more emotional and social rather than medical.

Dr Thomas (IN PHOTO) is a strong advocate of education, especially educating parents about caring for their children.

"Adult diseases begin in childhood. Most people don't know that children should be breastfed for six months.something as simple and profound as that which gives you a healthier, more intelligent child, people don't know."

She is a strong supporter of healthier foods for children in schools and is trying to get schools to cut down on selling soft drinks. "One soft drink a day is 14 pounds of weight a year," she noted.

In her practice, she works with children from early childhood to the end of adolescence (age 18). The practice is designed to provide a "learning, not waiting" environment. Instead of sitting in a waiting room, parents and children can use the resource centre and go through books (from paediatric journals to "Kids National Geographic"), or listen to tapes and watch videos on topics of interest.

At the resource centre there is also an aquarium and the fishes include some of those from the popular movie Finding Nemo . Also to be found there are multimedia presentations for parents and other professionals to use, and a book club called Reach Out and Read.

With this resource centre, Dr Thomas is trying to link health to education and parenting.

She is also attempting to make these resources available to the wider community and not just her patients. The "A Hand To Hold" initiative invites interested primary and secondary schools in the area to visit the resource centre one Friday a month.

Students can make full use of the multimedia material and the library. They can engage in interactive sessions aimed at fostering health promotion, self-concept building, and increasing literacy. This is done in a multimedia-rich, child-focussed environment with links to art, music and technology.

Another service at the resource centre is Homework Support with a qualified remedial teacher, Khadine Ashraph, and a Teen Afternoon is on the drawing board.

The LJPRC is also the location for Love and Logic Parent Training workshops facilitated by Linda Anderson.

Although originally from the United States , Linda believes she has Trinidad in her blood since she's been married to a Trinidadian for over 20 years. Her husband, Steve Guiland, was born and raised in Trinidad and left for the US at age 20.

When he and Linda got married and were starting a family, they decided to sail to different countries until they found somewhere they wanted to live. They started out from California with their daughter Turiann and it took two years before they arrived on our shores. When they got to Trinidad Linda did not want to leave, and they have lived here ever since.

For six years, Linda worked as a guidance counsellor at Maple Leaf International School. One of her job requirements was to put together some sort of training for parents. She researched the many parent-training programmes and stumbled across Love and Logic . She liked what she read about it: "It seemed to come from a really loving perspective rather than an angry, punitive perspective."

The school sent her to train at the Love and Logic Institute in the US and, with this fresh training, she brought the programme back and started teaching the method to parents.

"Once I started doing it with the parents I just fell in love with what I was teaching and how they were responding," Linda said.

Linda Anderson speaks at a parent training workshop

She eventually quit her job at the school to teach Love and Logic parenting full-time. "To me, it just feels like this is a gift I need to make available to parents everywhere."

She regularly teaches courses at Maple Leaf International School and at the La Joya Paediatrics Resource Centre.

"Becoming a Love and Logic Parent" is a practical and entertaining training programme. It seeks to reduce the stress of parenting and help families enjoy each other more.

Linda says, "The end result is teaching kids how to be accountable and responsible at a very early age instead of waiting until they are 20 and go out into the world to then figure out how to be responsible."

Linda met Dr Thomas through a mutual friend, the principal of Maple Leaf. Their partnership and the contributions of all who work with the paediatric office and the resource centre have resulted in a holistic health environment providing many valuable services to families.

The La Joya Paediatrics office can be contacted at 645-9605.

For more information about the La Joya Paediatrics Resource Centre one can call 645-3561, or email them at info@lajoyamd.com .

Linda Anderson can be contacted at phone: 637-2415 and email: guilanderson2@yahoo.com.