What, Me Worry? 

Supporting our Children in an age of Increasing Anxiety

We live in an age of increasing anxiety. The influence of technology and increasing expectations on our children leave many parents and kids anxious and worried. This workshop addresses the physiological impact of stress on our lives and offers strategies to support our children and ourselves

Positive Peers

Coaching Your Child Toward Positive Peer Relationships

A child’s friendships are a strong indicator of their overall well-being. It can be difficult to know when and how to get involved in your child’s social life.  How do we know what is typical and acceptable behavior and when the behavior has crossed a line to something more harmful?  How can I help my child develop better skills at developing and keeping friends?  When should I let my child work out problems and when should I intervene?  What are some differences between boys’ and girls’ relational styles?  How do I prepare my child for the challenges of peer pressure?   This 90 minute interactive presentation will offer ideas for keeping perspective on your child’s social world.

Independent & Resilient

Competition and High Expectations: Supporting Your Children to be Independent and Resilient

This parenting workshop will discuss the roles of competition and cooperation across childhood developmental stages. Our conversation will consider the self-esteem movement and how that has led organizations and families to believe that everyone must win. We will contrast that with the work of Kristin Neff and the importance of self-compassion. We will explore such specifics such as being a gracious winner, moving on from loss, and balancing cooperation with competition.

Helping Your Gifted Child Find Balance

Parenting gifted children poses unique challenges. They may be more demanding, persevering, and sensitive. Additionally, social, emotional and physical characteristics may not develop at the same rate as cognitive abilities for many gifted kids. This presentation explores the context of giftedness, the difficulties in raising gifted children and shares strategies for helping your children be well-rounded.

Strategic Fathering

Fathers often underestimate the influence they have on their children’s lives. Yet, there is a growing body of research supporting the importance of fathers to child development. This workshop shares data from that research, looks at the barriers to father’s involvement, and considers strategies to enhance men’s participation in their kids’ lives.

Boys

What About Boys?

Nationally and locally boys make up two-thirds of those in special ed classes, they represent 70% of middle school and high school discipline referrals, and their dropping rates of graduation and college attendance are cause for concern. We know that relationships hold the key to improving boys’ health and academic performance. But how do we establish and maintain connections with boys?

This workshop examines current data on boys in schools and their communities. Participants will learn about boys’ unique developmental issues and explore ways to enhance communication with boys.

Safer School

Creating Safer Schools: The Role Parents Play in Reducing Teasing

The National Association of School Psychologists reports that 22% of fourth through eighth graders claim academic difficulties resulting from peer abuse. This workshop will define bullying and consider its place on the violence continuum. We will examine the roles involved in teasing behavior and the social context that this exists in. We will discuss ways to support your kids.

Risks

Risky Business

Adolescence represents a time of heightened risk taking for many students. This presentation examines current data on high risk behavior, and the social context of teens that leads to risk taking. Using the Search Institute’s Developmental Asset Model as a guide, a number of strategies will be shared to assist your family in navigating the adolescent years.

Parent Involvement

The Power of Parent School Collaboration

A great deal of research has shown the positive effects of parental involvement in students’ learning. This workshop will look at that data and provide ideas to increase parental involvement in your school.

It's Getting Hot in Here: Anger and Conflict in Families

Conflict and anger are a normal part of life. However, many families feel unequipped to constructively move through conflict. This presentation will examine the ways conflict escalates in families, share ideas about the role of anger in conflict and suggest methods to skillfully manage charged discussions at home.

Successful Students

Helping Boys Succeed as Students: The Role That Parents Play

Boys’ academic challenges are well documented. This parent presentation looks at how parents can support their son’s academic progress. We will look closely at organizational skills, making school relevant, advocating for your son, and finding more success with reading and writing.

Boys and Girls

Boys and Girls Side by Side

Too often the topic of gender differences is approached as a zero sum game as if one gender has it worse and that by helping one gender we will hurt the other. This workshop explores the strengths and challenges boys and girls tend to face in terms of relationships without pathologizing either boys or girls. Parents will leave this workshop with new ideas about how to best support their sons and daughters.

Raising Teens

The Owner's Manual for Raising Teens: What Really Matters

Many fear the time their children will reach adolescence. Raising teenagers can be trying. This presentation will help parents understand what is normal for teens and when to seek help. Participants will consider the social and biological influences on adolescent development as well as how our own teen history colors how we interact with our teenage children. We will explore strategies to stay connected, keep perspective and not take things personally.

Why Can't we Just Get Along? Creating Positive Sibling Relationships

A lively conversation for parents exploring the topic of sibling rivalry. How does birth order impact the way our children interact? What role does gender play? We’ll discuss the underlying dynamics behind sibling rivalry and learn practical parenting strategies for improving sibling relationships.

Alcohol and Other Drug Prevention

This workshop shares information about the prevalence of drug use among school aged children, the role that school staff play in initiating change among drug using students, and most successful intervention techniques.

Safe Schools

Creating Safe School Climates

More and more we understand that creating safe school climates begins with preventing teasing and harassing behavior and seeing such behavior as a point on a continuum of violence. This workshop takes a systemic look at school climate issues, discussing the importance of school policies and the roles school staffs, parents and students play to make schools safer.

Parent Involvement

Increasing Parent Involvement

Parent school collaboration has been shown to increase students’ commitment to education, lead to higher school achievement, reduce school problems, and reduce high risk behaviors. This event highlights the research in support of parent school collaboration and shares ideas for increasing parent participation.

Boys and Education

Many aspects of schools are not sympathetic to boys relational and learning styles. This workshop which can be adapted to run from 3 hours to a full day examines the data on how boys are doing in schools, reviews boys unique developmental issues, and shares strategies for incorporating more movement into the classroom, utilizing literary strategies that tend to work for boys, improving boys relational capacity, and managing elements of violence and humor in boys’ writing.

Father Participation

Enhancing Father Participation in Schools

Schools are in a unique position to disseminate information about the importance of father participation in children’s learning. Often increased father participation can be accomplished through activities such as an evening scavenger hunt with children, strategically utilizing fathers as volunteers and, intentionally requesting that fathers read with their children.

Safer Schools

Making Schools Safer for Students

This workshop uses interactive activities and discussion to help young people see the role we each play in making schools safer. Strategies aimed at the bully, bullied and bystanders are stressed.

Peer Helper Trainings

These one to two day events teach young people valuable skills at helping their peers. A lot of attention is paid to how those in helping roles must care for themselves. The day is face paced, varied, and involves a great deal of practice.

Boys' Days

Boys are buffeted about by the social forces encouraging them to be tough and uncaring yet they have very little understanding of these forces and their potential for harm. This activity based event helps increase boys’ awareness of these influences and gain skills to strengthen their capacity to resist them.