5-Hour Module: Positive Parenting Series: Growing Human(E) Beings! (D5)

Every parent and caregiver wants the best for their child. We all want our children to grow up and do more than thrive...we want them to be human(E)! There are intentional strategies you can teach and promote with your child that will help them build the social-emotional skills needed to build friendships, navigate complex problems and to ensure they have strong resilience skills. Each video webinar is approximately 50 minutes which includes the PowerPoint slide deck and takeaway handouts!

What do you get? A certificate of completion at the end for 8 total hours!

You will participate in 7 sequential video webinars an average of 50 minutes each. You will be provided with the PowerPoint slide deck and other associated tools/handouts to take away, download and print. Several additional resources will be provided to support your ongoing learning.

There is a simple recipe to GROW HUMANE BEINGS:

1.   Teach children sensory and emotional literacy

2.   Teach children to recognize the size of their emotions

3.   Teach children to regulate when emotions are big

4.   Teach children problem-solving skills

TEACH not PUNISH!

Self-Care Part 1 and Part 2

In these two modules, you will learn about how cultivating self-awareness and self-care can prevent parent burnout. Self-awareness and self-care will also allow one to have the restored energy reserves required to buffer their own stress and to prevent reactionary behavior (yelling, threatening, raising a voice, bribing) that can either cause harm or to create an environment of fear. These concepts are foundational to positive parenting. Cultivating these practices support adult's in being more equipped to respond to children's dysregulated behavior with grounding calm, compassion and able to think of using positive parenting strategies that promote and teach children new skills. When a parent or caregiver is stressed out, they are more apt to flip their lid and react in ways that can sometimes be frightening to a child.

Nurturing and responsive relationships

Within the context of safe, nurturing and responsive (not reactive) relationships, a child may begin to calm their activated stress response system so that they can expand their window of tolerance and engage in learning academically, socially and emotionally. This is the most foundational strategy in parenting. It is also essential to build attachment with their primary caregiver which can help the child build an internal narrative that people are safe and the world around me is safe. When this happens, children can grow developmentally to the next stage of social-emotional development. With nurturing and responsive (not reactive) caregivers, children build positive attachments, have success in friendships and relationships, expand their window of tolerance and have increased focal attention and academic performance.

Safe and predictable environments

When adults provide an environment that promotes safety and predictability, a child develops an internal narrative that the world around them is safe. When children feel safe, this can buffer their toxic stress, promote resilience, support engaging academically, socially and emotionally in the learning environment.

Sensory and Emotional Literacy

Children can be taught with practice to tune in to their body sensory clues when they are calm or becoming dysregulated. The prefrontal cortex/CEO is ready and willing to listen and focus and learn only when calm. A child cannot learn and be taught sensory literacy or body awareness unless they are in the zone of optimal regulation/tolerance (green zone) as opposed to when they are dysregulated to hyper (fight or flight) or hypo aroused (freeze). 

When I “know” me (insight), it helps me “know” you (empathy). Promoting self-awareness increases their ability to have empathy for others.

Two types of attunement:

Intrapersonal: tuning in to your own internal world

Interpersonal: tuning in to the internal world of another

Children cannot tune in to another until they are regulated and learn and can manage their own internal world of emotions. This happens by adult caregivers who teach them identify and manage their internal state of sensations and emotions.

EMOTIONAL SAFETY: we talk to children a lot about “being safe, but that is physical safety. As adults we also need to look out for their emotional safety/health. When children feel seen and heard, they feel belonging and significance. They feel they are a part of the “we” and they know how they impact those around them. SOMEONE HOLDS THEM IN THEIR HEARTS AND MINDS: HEART TO HEART CONNECTION. As we learn about sensory literacy, the most important tool is to teach children to recognize their internal emotional state.

Managing Big Emotions and Self-Regulation

Once a child can learn to identify sensations and emotions, next they must be taught how to identify the size of their emotions AND manage their big emotions so that they don't hurt others, themselves or property. When a child is born, they rely on the adult to regulate them when they are in distress. As children become toddlers, they often seek a comfort object when the primary adult caregiver is not available. As they age, we can support them in learning other strategies to regulate themself when they are in the red zone of emotions. As adults, we must TEACH, not PUNISH so that children can learn social-emotional strategies that support them in building the most important skills to help them be successful and human(E) beings.

Teaching Problem Solving Skills

The research shows that children with strong social-emotional skills have better academic performance, focal attention, problem solving skills, better friendships and relational skills and increased resilience as well as an expansion of their window of tolerance (the ability to weather small and large emotional storms). Once you teach children emotional and sensory literacy, size of emotions and self-regulation, scaffolding the next skill is more advanced but just as important...problem solving! Problem solving involves the building of an advanced brain muscle in the prefrontal cortex which can access the ability to think, reason, self-regulate, have empathy, perspective-take, problem-solve and have abstract reasoning. In this module you will learn how to teach children to build this important skillset called problem solving.

A professional development certficate for 8 hours will be provided upon completion.