Parenting Programs

The following programs or educational evenings are suited for those who are involved in parenthood, caretaking or educating children. They are also useful for those considering parenting as well as for students and practitioners interested in working with couples on parenting and family issues. Groups of parents, school systems, and communities are encouraged to inquire about arranging a program to suit their needs.

Nurturing the Inner Life of Children

This program offers parents, teachers, and caretakers practical and inspirational interventions that support the growth and development of the inner life of children. In a world with so much outer stimulation, children and adults need skills and attention for supporting and nourishing the imaginative, inner life within.

  • Help support your child's emotional intelligence

  • Enjoy and deepen the power of your child's imagination and creativity.

  • Learn more about relating and connecting with your children in meaningful and wondrous ways

  • Learn ways to support your child's worldly life in connection to an inner life

  • Help kids develop their "second attention," ways of perceiving that make life more meaningful, imaginative and creative

  • Deepen your own relationship with your children and yourself

  • Learn to parent from the inside out

Interventions into a Culture of Fear: Bullies and Victims

We will address this most urgent and central challenge through skills and techniques for working with bullying and helping victims and communities respond. Parents will learn ways to support their child's experience and empower bystanders to create and nurture a community we all want to live in.

  • Learn to engage meaningfully with bullying. Bullying is not a "right of passage" to be endured, but a painful and life altering experience for many children.

  • Educate yourself and your child to have a variety of interventions to respond to bullies

  • Learn heartful interventions to engage with bullying behavior

  • Empower bystanders. When one child is hurting, your child could be next.

  • Create a culture that embraces difference. Kids who are different are often the ones picked on.

  • Learn tools to meaningfully engage with bullying behavior that do not demonize the "bully."

Interview From Madness Radio: School Bullying

First Aired 6-2-2009

What are the lasting impacts of taunting, teasing, and physical harassment between children? Why are kids who are different singled out and picked on? What can parents do if their children are victims of bullies?

Listen to the show at Madness Radio | Download the show

Power at Play

Power struggles are a key issue in childhood development. Learn to enjoy and play with power instead of getting caught up in its struggles. Good for parents and educators as well as all people who are working with children.

  • Learn how you get triggered by power issues so you can disentangle your own struggles from those of your children

  • Explore the relationship between power issues and conflict

  • Help your child state their opinion respectfully and not be shut down by power

  • Learn how to use power wisely and help your children use their power for the good of everyone.

  • Explore creative and fun ways to interact with power with children of all ages

  • Learn how to genuinely empower your children

Parenting at Odds and Together

Parenting is inspiring and can create more intimacy between adults. But it can also be challenging when divergent parental philosophies emerge: kids play one off another, jealousy arises, and children can become too central in the adult relationship. We will explore these differences in an attempt to make the parenting relationship more creative and family life more dynamic.

  • Support your own unique parenting style

  • Explore parenting differences creatively so they enrich family life

  • Appreciate parenting as a mythical calling

  • Learn tools to work on conflict and differences

  • Learn how to work with jealousy and the role children play in the adult relationship

  • Learn supportive techniques for single, joint, separated and divorced parents.

Fitting In - On The Fringe

This program focuses on the problems of peer pressure, social interaction, and individuality. We will explore the crucial human need to fit in and belong, as well as the desire to express our individuality. In schools and social circles these two needs are often polarized, creating painful social interaction, depression, and even suicide in our youth.

  • Gain useful tips for understanding children, building their self-esteem, and helping them create better relationships.

  • Discover innerwork techniques to help children find their own sense of belonging and nurture their own unique nature

  • Find out how our own childhood experiences of peer pressure and feeling marginal can become entangled in our parenting.

  • Learn how to notice the danger signs when children feel ostracized and depressed and gain new tools for how to address this.