Baby, You Really Ought To
Think It Over!

By Lylee Williams
(based on an interview with Colleen Buffalo, Cree Nation)

Years ago, when Colleen Buffalo was enrolled in a Recreation Program in college, one of her assignments was to design a program that would benefit her community. Because of her love of working with young people and being tuned in to the unique needs and problems that accompany the teenage years, she created a program for them called the “Personal Development Camp”. At this camp, a group of 15 teens participate in workshops where they learn about family dynamics, personal hygiene, and explore issues such as peer pressure, self-esteem, suicide, and various abuses. Colleen offered the program and its success was astounding! Since then, she has facilitated 10 camps, each one held separately for boys and girls between the ages of 13 and 17. Over the five nights and six days they are together, each student is given parental responsibility for taking care of an infant! Colleen explains this ‘parenting’ aspect as follows: “On the first night that they arrive, each teen receives their very own ‘baby’ which is a computerized doll that resembles a human infant. It is programmed to imitate the needs of a real baby and taking care of it shows teens what parenting is really like. These dolls imitate normal babies and every time it cries, whether it’s 3 o’clock in the morning or 3 o’clock in the afternoon, the teen places a plastic key in the doll’s monitor to quiet it. The teen holds the key in place for as long as it would take to feed, bathe, or diaper an infant. These young ‘parents’ also keep a journal of their experiences. Now, towards the middle of the week, I switch four normal babies with four FAS babies. The FAS baby cries uncontrollably, shakes and has tremors. It simulates a real FAS baby born to a mother with a crack/cocaine addiction. Inserting the key does not calm it down as it does a normal baby.” This program has been so powerful that Colleen has been receiving numerous requests for Professional Development workshops from other communities, not only in Canada but in the United States as well. She is presently available to give the long and short versions, the shorter being where she works with facilitators so that they can continue the program after she leaves the community. When asked about how the teens feel about becoming parents after the workshop is over, she laughs and is happy to report that by the end of the week, “the teens are ready to throw the dolls at me.” (For more information about Colleen Buffalo’s Personal Development Workshop, you can contact her at the Howard Buffalo Memorial Center of the Samson Band, Alberta at (780) 585-3012. Additional information about the ‘Baby Think It Over’ dolls and program in the United States, you can visit their Website: http://www.education-world.com/a_curr/curr077.shtml)