Workshops for Parents Place Express
on the Peninsula (effective July 1, 2006)

Birth - Preschool
Preschool OR School Age
Parenting Special Needs Children
School Age
Staff Training for Teachers - Preschool Through High School

Birth - Preschool

You and Me and Baby Makes Three
While anticipation of your new baby may be exciting, it can also produce anxiety. This workshop includes information about what it may be like in the first sixth months after your baby's arrival. Discussion focuses on newborn behaviors and the joys and challenges of parenting as a team.

Helping Baby Sleep Through the Night
Are your child's sleeping difficulties making it hard to be at your best? Discussion in this workshop will include information about the importance of establishing good bedtime routines and helping your child eventually learn how to self-soothe. Learn about what to expect regarding children's sleep issues at different stages in development. And look forward to getting more sleep yourself!

The Diaper Free Zone: Toilet Learning
Like many lessons in life, learning to use the toilet is not one that we can really teach children, but there are ways that we can help them teach themselves. This workshop includes information that helps you understand how to set up both an environment and an attitude that will guide and promote your child's progress. You will learn how consistency with a routine can help your child feel more in control and gain independence.

Understanding Your Child's Temperament
Temperaments are inborn, not something we can teach or instill. Discussion in this workshop will include information that can help you gain a better understanding about your child's temperament, and strategies for dealing with different types of temperament.

Parenting as Partners
This workshop looks at the key issues facing new parents, offering suggestions for understanding parenting styles, resolving conflicts, and nurturing the couple relationship.

Keeping Your Marriage Strong While Parenting
Maintaining a strong marriage can be one of the most challenging aspects of parenting. In this informative and interactive workshop, you will learn strategies to strengthen your marital friendship, despite the stresses of parenthood. Included are exercises for enhancing positive communication and staying emotionally connected to your spouse.

Healthy Eating Habits for Children
What exactly is a nutritious diet and how do we get our children to eat it? Discussion will include information on fat, sugar, protein, fiber, herbs, and supplements in relations to children's health, along with some helpful strategies to avoid food battles with your child.

Positive Discipline: Building Self-Esteem
Explore discipline techniques that aim to preserve and boost self-esteem. Discussion includes ways to nurture communication, cooperation, and altruistic behavior.

Set Limits and Save Your Sanity
Consider your problems, evaluate your options, and learn techniques to set limits with your children that will save your sanity.

Preparing for Kindergarten
Learn about what to expect from kindergarten programs and what makes a child ready for the experience. Discussion will include suggestions on how you can help your child prepare socially, emotionally, and academically.

Raising Children Multilingually/Multiculturally
Learn the developmental characteristics of multilingual and multicultural children. Explore ways to help them retain and build on the languages and cultures they are learning as well as develop strategies to promote a child's language skills.

Learning How to Choose a Preschool
This workshop helps parents compare and contrast between different types of programs and philosophies of early childhood education. Learn about the developmentally appropriate practice and the research that backs up its importance in preschool education. Information on children's readiness and the logistics of visiting and interviewing preschools will also be shared.

Raising a Highly Sensitive Child
Sensitivity is not a discipline issue, or a special need, or a problem in general. It is actually a valuable temperament trait that needs to be better understood. This workshop offers insights into the behaviors of children who become easily overwhelmed by certain situations or sensations. Discussion will include strategies for helping parents gain skills to deal with the challenges of raising a highly sensitive child.

Ouch! He Bit Me!
Why do kids bite and what parents can do about it. Explore the biting syndrome motive and responses and discover successful coping strategies.

Balancing Work and Family (All ages)
This interactive workshop is a discussion of the recurring challenges that are faced by working parents raising children. Strategies for finding the right balance between work and family and staying connected to your child.

The Art of Fathering
Having a good relationship with dad or another positive male role model is good for children- girls as well as boys. This workshop includes discussion of the importance of a father's relationship in a child's life, information on child development, and suggestions about father-child activities that can help men gain knowledge and comfort in their role as fathers.

Happy Moms Make Happy Families: Finding Fulfillment in the Roles You Choose
Explore life decisions that will be best for you. Learn how you can set up your life to fulfill all the important parts of you- mom, personal, and professional - whether you are working or at home. Workshop includes a series of structured exercises and discussions to help mothers to design and live their lives for maximum satisfaction.

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Preschool OR School Age

Creating Resilient Families
Something about raising children has changed in today's fast-paced world. Many parenting experts feel that parents are under continuous pressure to plan, enrich, and do this important job the one, precisely right way. The pressure and stress on today's families can be overwhelming. In this workshop we will focus on the challenges of raising children in today's "hurry up" world. We will discuss strategies for raising resilient and healthy children, and how parents can establish healthy family schedules and find the right balance for their families.

Parenting Twins
The twin parenting experience is not static- the issues and challenges change from year to year -sometimes day to day! Each stage, from infancy to adolescence, calls for different strategies. Discussion in this workshop will include suggestions that are helpful with multiples between the ages one to five.

Raising Sons
Despite our best intentions and our sincere desire to engage in gender-neutral parenting, we all have ideas, often unconscious, of what boys are like. We may see our sons as the archetypical prince, to be molded into a great leader. Or he may be the stereotypical bad boy who needs constant direction and control. Either way, we may be doing our sons a disservice. This workshop helps parents understand typical boy behavior and suggests ways to help our sons thrive.

Raising Daughters
Raising daughters has gone hand in hand with worry for millennia. Once upon a time those worries centered on virtue and marriage. Now parents worry about identity, self-esteem, self-confidence, achievement, health and fitness, sexuality, and society's view of women. This workshop helps parents see their daughters' development in the context of today's world so they can help their girls fulfill their potential, follow their interests, and learn to lead satisfying lives.

Handling Parental Anger
Analyze adult anger toward children: triggers and responses. Investigate productive management techniques.

That Makes Me So Mad! Exploring Child Anger
Examine children's anger and coping strategies. Learn new tools to deal with the anger.

Negotiating With Kids: Problem Solving Parent-Child Problems
Problem-solving adult-child conflict. Learn how to turn power struggles into win-win solutions.

Encouraging Responsibility
Review reasonable expectations of children at different ages regarding responsibility. Identify the components of responsible behaviors and explore ways to teach your child the skills needed to be a responsible person.

Coping Well Under Pressure
This informative and engaging workshop explores the impact of stress on ourselves and our families, and offers practical ideas to help build resiliency during difficult times. Information on gender differences in the perception and experience of stress is presented and stress management strategies are discussed.

Coaching Children to Have Strong Emotional Intelligence
Discover how parents can increase their child's emotional intelligence. Teach children awareness and expression of their feelings, empathy for others, and problem-solving skills.

Sibling Rivalry or I Want It My Way! Helping Children Problem Solve Solutions
Uncover reasons for sibling quarrels and minimize conflict. Discover when and how to become a successful mediator.

Best & Worst of Times: The New Sibling
Discuss the ups and downs of an additional child. Parents will learn tips to help minimize jealousy before and after the birth of the new sibling.

Help, I'm Stressed!
Not all stress is bad?identify what triggers stress for you. Explore many parental coping strategies for dealing with stress.

Exploring the Grandparenting Connection: A Culture of Elders or a Clash of Cultures
It still takes a village to raise a child. This workshop will focus on the connection between grandparents, parents and their children and how to create a culture of acceptance within extended families.

Eating, Sleeping, Dressing, and Other Woes of Parenthood
Parents will explore how to avoid power struggles around food, sleep, and clothing in pre school aged children.

Effective Communication Strategies with Children
What is active listening and how do "I" statements help establish good communication in families? This workshop will focus on helping develop communication strategies that work with children, helping kids deal with their feelings and learn to express them in constructive ways, and strategies for engaging kids to be cooperative.

I'm Talking But They're Not Listening
Learn how to practice positive speaking and new ways to listen to encourage children to "hear" us when we speak. Gain new ideas of what to do when children are not following directions and understanding limits.

Harmonious Holidays with Children
How families can minimize stress and maximize enjoyment during the holiday season. This workshop will look at parent values, identify the potential for anxiety, and explore strategies for creating harmonious holidays with children and extended family.

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Parenting Special Needs Children

Does My Child Have a Learning Difference?
What do learning differences look like? When does a learning difference become a disability? These are questions that will be explored in this workshop along with ideas about specific tools and techniques to help parents recognize whether a learning difference may be hindering their child's accomplishments.

I'm Afraid my Child Isn't Reading: A Guide to Parents With Children With Reading Disorders
How do I know if it is a learning problem or just a delay in reading? This workshop will focus on looking at the difference between a delay, a learning difference, and a true learning difficulty. Includes discussion of early intervention and strategies in school and at home for keeping your child's self esteem intact.

Children with Learning Problems: Strategies for Becoming Successful Learners:
A Parents' Guide to Life Success for Children With Learning Difficulties. The goals of this workshop will be to discuss how children with learning difficulties become successful in school and in life, what the personal attributes are that create successful children, how a child develops these success attributes, and finally, how parent's can help their children be successful learners in school and in life.

Parenting a Child with ADD/ADHD
A workshop for parents whose children have been diagnosed with ADD/ADHD. Discussion will focus on discipline, improving the quality of life at home, and issues related to school and learning.

Understanding Our Children's Unique Learning Styles
All Children learn at a different pace and in unique and different ways. The goal of this workshop is to help identify your child's unique learning style and multiple intelligences. We will also focus on recognizing your own learning style and how it either differs or is similar to your child's style. Finally, we will discuss what parents can do to enhance their child's ability to be successful learners.

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School Age

Understanding and Guiding Children's Friendships
Learn how children's friendships develop during the elementary school years. Discussion will include skills children need to learn how to make and keep friends, and how parents can help with rejection and hurt feelings.

I'm Not Mad At You - I Just Hate You! The Mother-Daughter Relationship
Examine this complex, challenging but ultimately rewarding relationship between girls and their mothers.

Peers, Popularity and Power - Understanding Girls' Friendships
Learn to better understand and navigate your daughter's social relationships, and what your role is in supporting her.

Odd Girl Out: The Ways Girls Bully and How to Disarm Them
There is a hidden culture of aggression among girls that is difficult to recognize because it's not marked by the direct physical and verbal aggression we see in boys. It is pervasive, destructive, and has a lasting impact on the victim, bystander, and the perpetrator. This workshop will focus on understanding relational aggression among girls and offer parents and teachers strategies on how to deal with it.

Developing Good Homework Habits
Identify the different types of behaviors children display that keep them from being successful with their homework. Discussion will include tips on how to guide, motivate, help with follow through, and identify any needs for special assistance. Parental involvement is essential to a child's success, but the type of involvement and the extent to which you get involved plays a role in whether the outcome is negative or positive.

Understanding Our Children's Learning Styles: Creating Successful Learners
Your child's learning style is how your child processes and learns new information. All children learn at a different pace and in different ways. When parents understand their children's learning styles, they will be better able to help them be successful learners. The goal of this workshop is to understand your child's unique approach to learning and to recognize your own learning style and how it either differs or is similar to your child's style. We will discuss multiple intelligences and how it impacts your child's ability to learn, and look at what parents can do to develop their child's multiple intelligences and enhance their ability to be successful learners.

Effective Limit Setting
Teaching children self-control and self-management is one of the most important aspects of a parent's job. Preventative discipline techniques will be discussed along with strategies for positive limit setting.

Preparing for Adolescence
Explore the pre-teen years. Discussion will include information on children's physical and psychological development along with strategies for staying connected and providing support.

The Romance of Risk: Talking to Kids About Risky Behaviors
Learn about how to keep the lines of communication open with your children. Discuss strategies to use when bringing up issues like smoking, drinking, sexual behavior, and drug use.

The Media's Messages to Our Children (For both pre school and school aged children)
Examine the messages children receive in the media as well as clarify your values as parents. We will work on problem solving strategies to foster moral character in children in spite of the messages that children are bombarded with in the media.

Guiding Children to Make Wise Decisions (for school age through adolescence)
Parents will learn how to guide their children to make responsible decisions and consider the consequences before acting. Parents will develop techniques to foster problem-solving and critical thinking skills in their children and provide guidance through positive coaching.

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Staff Training for Teachers - Preschool Through High School

Team Building: Communication Skills Training
Learn conflict resolution by analyzing staff problems. Explore non-verbal messages. Learn and practice listening and speaking skills. Brainstorm options and develop a plan of action.

Building a Community of Kindness: Banishing Social Cruelty
Throughout elementary and middle school, children spend most of their waking hours with other kids, and as parents and teachers know, the paths of these relationships can be difficult. Teasing, bullying, name-calling, rejection, and subtle, and not so subtle relational aggression are part of growing up during the elementary and middle school years.

Social cruelty; both in its overt and covert forms can have a lasting effect on the victim, the bully, the school, and the community. Schools working together as a community can play a key role in creating a community of kindness, respect for differences, and tolerance of others. This workshop will assist the staff and parents to build a school community that teaches inclusiveness, will not tolerate social cruelty, and builds resiliency in children that empowers them throughout their school years.