Speaking Topics for Parents
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Speaking Topics for Parents – Descriptions
Supporting your child's friendships:
Five Friendship Skills Every Child Needs to Learn
Nearly every child has trouble with friendships in some way, at some time. This presentation describes five essential friendship skills that are part of the unspoken social curriculum for school-age children. It offers parents practical ideas for helping children to feel more comfortable and confident in social situations.
Friendship in the Digital Age
The internet and electronic media are changing how kids play and how they communicate. What does that mean for friendship? This presentation looks at three forms of digital interaction that have parallel behaviors in the real world but also differ in important ways from comparable face-to-face interaction: video game playing, cyberbullying, and social media “depression.” It describes recent research regarding children’s online behavior and offers practical guidance for parents.
Dealing with Feelings About Friends
Kids' biggest feelings are often about friends. This workshop equips parents to help children understand, cope with, and talk about feelings – both their own and others'. Filled with practical strategies you can use immediately, you'll discover 3 key facts about feelings, 6 emergency calming strategies to soothe angry feelings, and the "Feelings Story" framework that empowers kids to deal with feelings in constructive ways. Give your child the tools to navigate the ups and downs of friendship.
“Very engaging and entertaining.”
Helping your child cope with feelings:
Kid Confidence: Help Your Child Build Real Self-Esteem
Directly trying to improve children’s self-esteem tends to backfire. The more we tell self-doubting kids, “You’re wonderful!”, the harder they argue, “I’m terrible!” This presentation addresses common self-esteem challenges: feeling friendless, giving up easily, and struggling with feeling different. Instead of trying to “boost” children’s self-esteem, we need to help them break free of harsh self-focus and discover the joy of a quiet ego by connecting with something bigger than themselves.
Smart Parenting for Smart Kids
It takes more than school smarts to build a fulfilling life. Our culture’s relentless focus on “being impressive” places a huge burden on children that can eclipse other aspects of their development and leave them feeling anxious, disconnected, irritable, or filled with self-doubt. Drawing from research and clinical experience, this program offers parents do-able strategies to help children learn to temper perfectionism, build relationships, and find joy.
Emotion Coaching: Help Your Child Cope With Feelings
We can’t guarantee that our children’s lives will be trouble-free, but we can help them develop the skills they need to cope with their feelings. This presentation offers ways to prevent or minimize children’s emotional “melt-downs.” It describes strategies parents can use to help children manage negative feelings and cultivate positive feelings
“Clear, concise, informative with a touch of humor.”
Building strong and caring families:
Teaching Kids Respect in a Disrespectful World
Many parents find themselves baffled and dismayed by behavior from children that would have been unthinkable when they were growing up. This presentation discusses social trends in our less-than-civil society and offers practical, research-based strategies parents can use to address common challenges, such as children not listening, talking back, or misbehaving. The combination of both warmth and limits is our best bet for raising good kids.
Helping Siblings Get Along
Brothers and sisters can be wonderful friends and companions, but they also bicker and argue and tattle and tease. This talk draws from research, clinical knowledge, and the speaker’s own experience as a mother of four. With humor and compassion, it describes practical strategies for minimizing sibling squabbles, coping with unavoidable friction, and helping brothers and sisters learn positive people skills.
Myths and Truths About Resilience in Children and Families
“Children are resilient” is a popular saying, but it fails to capture the complexity of children’s responses to difficult experiences. This presentation examines common myths and deeper truths about resilience offers parents practical ways to help kids cope with the inevitable challenges life will throw their way.
“Info provided is realistic & readily applied.”
Informal Conversation Hour
For a completely customized event, participants can submit questions anonymously beforehand about a specific topic related to parenting or children’s feelings and friendships. The event organizer reads selected questions, and Dr. Kennedy-Moore answers them as part of an unscripted conversation. This is not a formal presentation, but rather an opportunity to explore a topic in a casual yet meaningful and safe way.
“Personal examples add color and closeness to the subject.”