Anyone with a preteen or teenager knows how hard it can be to communicate with them. Parents with children this age often have little in common with their children and even less to talk about.
To combat this communication breakdown, Joan Marstiller, the Franklin-Regional Middle School librarian, approached Carol Siefken, children's librarian at the Murrysville Community Library, about creating a mother-daughter book discussion group. Marstiller was already part of a book discussion group through the middle school, but only with students.
"I'd heard about mother-daughter book discussions that were popular in other places and thought it would be a good idea to create one in Murrysville," Marstiller said. "After we started doing a few, we realized we were excluding a lot of people. So we changed it to a parent-child book discussion so that boys could benefit, too."
For the last six years or so, Marstiller and Siefken have conducted the parent-child discussions for middle school students and their parents on a Sunday every other month. They met Sunday to discuss "A Corner of the Universe" by Ann M. Martin (of "Babysitters Club" series fame). Vastly different from her Babysitter series, "A Corner of the Universe" is about the summer that a girl named Hattie turns 12 and meets the childlike uncle with autism that she never knew.
For the program, middle school students and their parents borrow a copy of the book for the next discussion at the circulation desk at the Community Library, then join a group of other parents and their children to discuss their thoughts on the story and the themes covered in the young adult novels.
"It's a wonderful exchange of ideas," Siefken said. "By reading the same book and facilitating a discussion about it with both parents and children, it provides intergenerational viewpoints. One of the wonderful parts (about the discussion) is that parents and children talk about issues and develop thoughts about things that might not ordinarily come up otherwise."
"Both (parents and children) reading the same books provides food for thought, and you can tell the parents and children have discussed the book before even coming to the discussions," Marstiller said. "This makes for good times for bonding. For parents to share literature with middle school kids, especially at this age, it's nice for them to have something to talk about."
"Joanie has a lot of passion and dedication," Siefken said of her partner for the program. "She volunteers her time to come in to the library on Sunday afternoons on her day off. And she lives in Green Tree so it's not even like it's close for her. She is just amazing."
To select books for discussions both at the middle school and through the Community Library, Marstiller will take recommendations from others and search book reviews. She buys multiple copies so that there are always plenty to go around. A bonus of joining the parent-child discussion group is that families are able to borrow a copy of the book for the discussion for up to two months, the time in between discussions, giving families plenty of time to read the book and think about what they've read.
"We talked about how what we're doing is essentially recreating the old family dinner table," Siefken said. "This is a place where nobody is criticized. People listen and are interested in each other's ideas. Also, one idea triggers another, so there is a halo effect that makes for great discussions. The ideas just flow into one another. It's amazing to see the way the generations listen to and learn from one another."
Siefken also mentioned that the book discussion is not just for parents and children or families within the Franklin-Regional School District.
"In fact, some families have all come in together, including grandparents, siblings and parents. Bring everybody; we've had extended family members come in and it has been phenomenal," she said.
For more information on the parent-child book discussion, contact Carol Siefken at the Murrysville Community Library at 724-327-1102.
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