Pre-school children bridge the generations with elderly pals at Ratoath nursing home
A PRE-SCHOOL teacher in Ratoath who regularly brings her young students to a local nursing home says the visits are the “highlight of their week.” Children attending Happy Days Pre-School have struck up an unlikely friendship with residents in Ratoath Manor Nursing Home breaking down barriers between young and old thanks to Eilish Balfe's enthusiasm for intergenerational learning.
The children have taken such a shine to the elderly occupants that they even convinced Met Eireann to name a weather event after one of the much-loved pensioners. The 'Name our Storms' campaign caught the imagination of the students aged from two and a half to five and a half who pleaded with their teacher to enter eighty seven-year-old Kitty Quirke into the competition. Their plight was successful and 'Storm Kitty' is due to hit our shores this winter.
“Met Eireann put a call out looking for suggestions for names for upcoming storms. I was telling the children this and they asked me to send in Kitty's name so we did and it got picked so one of the storms that will be coming will be called Storm Kitty. There were only 21 names picked and Kitty is one, which is amazing.”
Children from Happy Days Preschool with residents of Ratoath Manor Nursing Home
“My dad had dementia and was a resident, he passed away in March. I was talking to the receptionist there one day who was telling me that the residents love seeing children coming in.”
A chorus of nursery rhymes isn’t what you expect to hear on walking into an elderly people’s home but that's exactly what you'll hear every week in Ratoath,
“We bring toys and we make playdough and sing. The children have clics, they are like lego and they make jewellery and put it on the residents. We were talking about Christmas time last year and the residents were telling the children how they used to put their dad’s stocking up and they'd be filled with oranges and the children couldn't get over it. So we decided to do it in school where they had to bring their dad’s or granddad’s sock in and put goodies in it.
Joseph Finglas and Alice Eiffe meet Cathal Mc Gowan from 'Happy Days' preschool
“We put on a Christmas show every year and we invite the community and they asked Albert who is 93 to switch on the Christmas lights so he came up from the nursing home to light up the Christmas tree. Of course, Kitty has made a big impression on them. They just love her, when we arrive in she will say 'your kitty cat is here.'
“The children that have been visiting the residents for two-and-a-half years started school this September and I have been getting text messages from the parents saying that they are missing their friends.”
Eilish says that the lack of a filter in children also helps to open up difficult conversations,
“They will ask the questions that you or I won't ask like, why are you sick? why are you bald? why do you sleep so much? When my dad passed away one of the children came in that morning and said did your dad go to heaven last night and I said yeah he did and he said well I'm glad because he was sick. Two weeks later he asked me if I was getting a new dad!
Alice Eiffe meets Emma Coulter
“We got an ice cream parlour to come to the nursing home one day and when we went in Kitty wasn't in her chair and the staff told the children that she was having a bath and they couldn't believe that there was a bath there. I told them that they sleep here and that there are bedrooms, they thought that it was a Montessori for older people. That was another conversation about how they live there and their families come to visit.
“We have had huge feedback from the resident's families as well about how they talk about the children coming. The atmosphere changes when we come in, you can feel it changing, the mood lifts with the children's laughter and their silliness, they don't experience that every single day.”