Meet Gigi: WINGS Grandmother

The majority of WINGS kids come from single-parent homes and the single caregiver is often an older sibling or grandparent. This is the situation for two current WINGS kids who are being raised by their grandmother, or Gigi as they call her.

Every day, Gigi takes the bus to WINGS to pick up her grandkids, giving our staff the opportunity to get to know her while she waits for the program to end. It was during this time that our staff first became aware of Gigi's challenges at home.

Over the last few months, the grandkids' behavior had become extremely challenging at WINGS and at home: meltdowns, tantrums, and disrespect. Gigi shared that she was struggling to set and maintain boundaries. We created a behavior plan for each child to provide structure, consistency, and strategies that could be used both during WINGS and at home. In order to make sure that Gigi felt supported, a WINGS Leader spent time explaining the behavior plan and how it would work at home. After a few weeks, Gigi told us “the behavior plan helped me become more comfortable creating new boundaries and supporting my kids with both positive and negative consequences.” She went on to say: