Twixt and Tween, Making the Most of the Tween Years

Ah, tweens, hormones aplenty, social and emotional growth occurring at a dizzying pace, fun times! The 9- to 13-year-old starts down the path of self-identity, independence, and development of moral values that will mark the teen years. They push you away, and pull you closer.  It can be a confusing time for the tween, and for the adults in your tweens' life.  Certified educators Heather Lampron and Joe O'Quinn will demystify these years, reviewing normal and expected behaviors for 4th through 8th graders, about age 9 to 13. In this interactive session, attendees will  practice some quick and easy tools to defuse emotions, peer conflict, and setting limits. Learn shortcuts to connect in a positive way with the tweens in your home, school, or program, and emphasize positive interactions in the group.   

Especially for teachers: As a 5th grade teacher in the acclaimed Poway school district, Joe O'Quinn, M. Ed. has a classroom full of tweens on a daily basis. "I love teaching 5th graders. They grow up so much over the course of one school year. They are learning about themselves, their skills, their dreams, their classmates, and the world.  It's an honor to be a part of their process." As an experienced teacher, Joe has a variety of tips to offer teachers, parents, and coaches on how to avoid some common pitfalls and stay connected with our tweens. 

    Fun fact:  have you ever wondered where the "tween" moniker comes from?  Heather and Joe will clue you in!

Does your thinking limit your success?

Have you ever had the feeling you were standing in the way of your own success? In this presentation, you will get a glimpse of the gorilla in the doorway leading to your dream life. Presenter, Rick Itzkowich, engages attendees in a stimulating experiential session. You’ll have the opportunity to explore the domino effect your thinking plays in the game of your personal and career life.

Takeaways:

An awareness of the power your thoughts have on the results you see in your life.

Pre-event:  How to look beyond the looking glass and see who’s really in charge.

An understanding of why your assumptions about love or money actually affect how much of both you have in your life.

Pre-event:  Why being aware of your perceptions about finances and love is a critical skill.

A new way of listening and reframing the judgmental chatter in your head.

                Pre-event:  Ways to stop living with the same 60,000 thoughts each day. 

Nourishing Wisdom: Improving Your Relationship with Food While Also Improving Your Children's Health

In this session we will look at health from a whole-person perspective, understanding that one's health is an expression of the complex interplay between the physical and the chemical, mental and emotional as well as spiritual and environmental aspects of one's life and being. We will discuss how every person has unique dietary needs and how to find out what those are by listening to your own body vs. external dietary theories. 

We will also talk about kids nutrition - their current health challenges and solutions to those challenges. Participants will learn 8 easy ways to raise healthier children in today's world and what kinds of nutritional supplements are of the most value to growing bodies.  

Participants will also learn how to balance both the food that they eat with primary food, the things that feed us other than food - and how to communicate these concepts to their children so that the whole family can have a positive, nourishing relationship with food. They will also learn about cravings in detail and how to deconstruct them so that they can understand their origin, mitigate the emotional response to food and learn to improve their health across the board.

Creating Families through Adoption:

Handling the "Abandonment" Word

Parents are asked “Why?” by their children about almost everything.  Parents who adopt may have an additional “why” asked of them.  “Why am I not with her?” or “Why did she give me up?” or “Why was I abandoned?”  Along with these questions come intense, complex and ambiguous emotions for everyone in the family.  In this powerful workshop – for parents and for adoption professionals – you gain clarity and insights to assist you in handling emotional issues, in talking about adoption with your child, and in handling the "why" so that you may move beyond the “abandonment” word.

Biography

Maggie Macaulay

Maggie Macaulay, MS Ed, the owner of Whole Hearted Parenting in Miramar, Florida, has assisted parents in creating cooperative, peaceful homes for over a decade.  She teaches the Redirecting Children’s Behavior™ Course, trains course instructors and leads RCB South Florida, a team of certified parent educators serving Broward, Palm Beach and Miami-Dade Counties.  Maggie is a certified coach and a featured parenting expert on NBC 6’s South Florida Today as well as for the online sites Parental Wisdom and New Baby.  Maggie created and facilitates Whole Hearted Adoption, a full-day workshop that explores myths and beliefs about parenthood, adoption and family building.  Maggie is a certified facilitator of the Freedom to Be course through Your Infinite Life Training and Coaching Company, and she is the recipient of the 2008 American Business Women's Association Spirit of Excellence Parent Educator of the Year Award.   You may reach Maggie at 954-483-8021 or www.WholeHeartedParenting.com and maggie_macaulay@msn.com. 

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Breathing Life back into Childhood

“Childhood has become indentured to test scores, performance and competition. We face an epidemic of unhealthy, disengaged, unprepared kids trying to manage as best they can.” – Vickie Albeles, Director, Race to Nowhere

“I won’t give up on my kids. There’s just so many different parents out there that want so much for their children.” – Maria, mother of Francisco, first grade, The Brox, Waiting for Superman

Breathing Life back into Childhood

This compelling workshop will take a look at the pressures that are being put on the children of today and will explore not only the breakdown in our school systems, but also in our families. Come gain some new tools to create a home and child(ren) who will thrive.  Presented by Author, Susie Walton who has spent the last two decades serving and coaching parents and families throughout Southern California, every participant will leave with a better understanding of the children of today, their needs and how we can all partner to support them in their own journey. Don’t miss this chance to get this valuable information. It could change your child’s experience of growing up!

Susie Walton

As a recipient of the San Diego Parent Educator of the Year Award, Susie Walton is a leading expert in the field of communication and relationships with an emphasis on family dynamics.   Susie has teamed with various companies and organizations such as Qualcomm, Sharp Hospital, and Children’s Hospital to develop and implement practical and positive change for youth and families.

Susie is a pioneer in parent education and has been leading seminars, hands-on workshops and full length parenting classes, instructor trainings, teacher in-services and one on one coaching for 20 years. In the early 90s Susie acted on her heartfelt belief that true positive change begins in the home and created an organization to help reduce stress and frustration in the areas of family relationships and raising children. 

Susie’s aspirations and dedication to providing positive change and mutual respect, inspired her to open Indigo Village in 2005.  Indigo Village is a practical, and authentic creation that comes from the saying “It takes a village to raise a child”. It is a unique and dynamic center allowing everyone the opportunity to join together for the purpose of enriching the community and bringing peace to the world at large.  Indigo Village is home to many classes, workshops, therapists, counselors, and other resources for families and individuals young and old.

Susie's strengths lie in her motivational speaking and when she is not sharing her expertise in parenting and communication, Susie is out and about as a regular guest on the local news station Channel 10 and as a radio guest on the “Jeff and Jer Showgram”.  She is an expert on team communications and regularly consults and strategizes with coaches and sports psychologists.

Professionally and personally, Susie is an active and influential community member, holding experience as a Board member for the YMCA Youth & Family Services, Families Forever and more recently the Indigo Village Educational Foundation.

Susie's accomplishments have received tremendous recognition; such as, defining and writing parenting course work for both the Center for Child Protection and the California State Penal System, a program for parents who are incarcerated minors. Susie played volleyball while attending UCLA and Sonoma State, and is still an active athlete who enjoys swimming, body boarding and yoga.  The 5th child in a family of 10, she herself has 4 sons, and makes her home in Encinitas, California.

Is your road map working for you or against you?

This world is advancing. People are starting to awaken and realize that they have choices when it comes to WHY, HOW and WHAT they experience in their life.

Old humanity is re-active/inactive and symptomatic. “Desperate times call for desperate measures” is what the slogan would be for this generation. A generation of people who, out of desperation, will react to “fix” the situation. Think about it. They show up all the time. For instance, a parent will call Indigo Village and say, “Help! My child is punching my other child. What should I do?” Only out of desperation, when sh*t hits the fan, will people react to their lives, their circumstances.

What they don’t realize is that they are the ones creating their own chaos. Good, bad or indifferent, they are creating it. Furthermore, what they really don’t realize is that there’s a better way.

What if people actually operated from a place of intention versus reaction. Why not have an intention to “live a life full of love and purpose” versus reacting to life in order to “live a life full of love and purpose?”

Let's take the example of starting your own business. The way most of us may experience this might sound something like this:

“I’m going to go to college, earn my degree, gain some job experience, save my money and then start my own business.” What kinds of questions would you have after making this decision? You might ask the question of, “What am I going to major in?” or “What kind of company do I want to gain experience from?” Furthermore, what kinds of opportunities do you think this sentence creates for you? Since you’ve already mapped out HOW you are going to get there, it doesn’t leave a whole lot of room for anything else, other than choices within these little checkpoints you’ve set up for yourself.

Now, what if I were to start by saying to myself: "my intention is to start my own business". What kinds of questions do you think would come up after making this decision? You might start to ask questions like “What do I want my business to look like?” or “What types of services and products do I want to offer?” What kinds of opportunities do you think you would open up for you with this sentence? Believe it or not, a whole world of opportunities presents itself. Because you haven’t already mapped it all out, you actually leave room for life, creativity, experience, and even more importantly, the likelihood of a future YOU created out of an intention. Not some roadmap that you thought would get you there. Chances are you really don’t want to go to college, or gain job experience or better yet, save your money. What you really want is to start your own business. You just think that this is the path laid out before you because someone, at some point, told you that this was the way it is done or the way it’s supposed to be.

If this is true, lets consider this. How many times have you known someone, it may even be you, who has opted for the “Go to college, earn your degree, get a job, save your money and so on.” Chances are you probably know a lot. There’s probably even a very good chance that the majority of those people who had this intention probably didn’t get past “Earn your degree” or “Save your money.” Life happens and it’s ridiculous to think that we could have all the answers to HOW our life will end up or map out HOW we will get there.

Now how many people do you know who have lived their life out of an intention they have created for themselves? It could be something such as “I believe in saving lives and want to become a doctor” or “I believe in creating peace through families and want to educate parents.” Not very many, and the ones you do know, stick out because they are the ones who did it differently. They are the ones who decided to create what they want and they are leaders of today.

My point is simple, people who want to live a life that is truly theirs and be held responsible for what they create, will always benefit from starting with the WHY and THEN creating an intention for their life out of that place. If my WHY is, “I believe in creating peaceful families,” than my commitment to my WHY will mold my life experiences instead of my roadmap of laid out plans or my inaction/reaction.

If you want an honest shot at experiencing a life that is truly yours, than WHY is where you need to start. If you are honest about creating your life experience from the WHY, the Indigo Village Educational Foundation will be presenting this opportunity by bringing Simon Sinek, leadership expert and Author of “Start With Why” as a keynote speaker to their third annual conference at USD on November 6th. For more information on tickets and availability, go to www.villageconference.com.

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Children Aren’t Old Enough to Make Good Decisions?

Oftentimes, we as parents do not feel that kids are capable of making good decisions. We end up telling them what to do, how to do it, and when to do it! Essentially we are raising robots who do not learn to think for themselves, as we are not encouraging them to develop their critical thinking skills. How can we hope that they will make good decisions when they are older if we do not allow them to make both good and not so good ones when they are young.

New Idea: Give them Choices

So often we get stuck in a power struggle with our children. i can tell you right now that most kids (just like many adults) do not like to be told what to do. Here are some stories about giving choices to minimize power struggles.

Teaching Point:
There are different kinds of choices:

Concrete choices:
Would you like to set the table or clear the table?

Playful choices:
Would you like to hop to bed or have a piggy-back ride to bed?

Choice with incentives:
Would you like to finish your show and have one
book or go to bed now and have three books?

Choice with consequences, best with young kids;
Your choice is to hold on to the shopping cart or be
put back into the shopping cart.

When offering any choice add the phrase,
“It is your decision,” it helps children learn that life is based on the decisions they make.

Story: The Dentist Every Parent Wished For
I have been seeing this young patient for about one and a half years. He is almost seven years old. The first few times I was barely able to look in his mouth, even to do a simple exam. He was very squirmy and was constantly moving his arms and head. He would get very nervous when I would look in his mouth, closing it in a protective and nervous manner.

I had just attended an RCB class with Susie. This young boy was my first patient the next morning. From the first moment I saw him I started practicing my RCB techniques. We talked about why he thought it was important to go to the dentist and the different things a dentist does.
I thanked him for being on time to the appointment and asked him what would make it a nice appointment for him. Once he sat we talked about the different things that he could do to help during his visit. I asked him if he wanted to have a quick visit or a long visit. He said a quick visit. I told him I felt he made a good choice. We talked about the different things he could help me with to make it a quick visit. We decided that keeping his hands to his side and his head still were good ways to help. I gave him the choice to either keep his hands to the side, on his lap, or on the arm rests. He recommended different ways to position his head. He made the choice to keep his head very still and with his chin slightly elevated.

After each decision, he was very happy with himself and became more and more excited to start implementing the decisions that he had decided upon. During the course of the appointment, he kept asking me if he was being a good helper. Each time, i told him that he made a good decision and was sticking to his promises. The patient was very happy and seemed to be encouraging himself.

In our office, we have traditionally given prizes to children after the appointment. This is in disagreement with the RCB notion of not giving praise or rewards, however, it is something that seems to be an expectation in a dental office. After the appointment, the young boy asked me if he could get a prize. I asked him if he felt he deserved one. Very enthusiastically, he said yes. I asked him why and he told me because he was a good helper. I asked him what he did to help and he said that he followed directions and kept his hands and head where he had decided they would be at the beginning of our appointment. I told the young boy that if he felt he wanted or really needed a prize that he was welcome to take one. The difference between this visit and past visits was remarkable. The appointment went very smoothly with very few interruptions. The boy showed a great sense of accomplishment and increased self-confidence. He left with a big smile on his face instead of one of frustration and low- morale.

TIPS:
1. Have your kids start making decisions on negotiable events.

2. Give them two choices, and then say, “You make the decision.” Be sure to stick with it even if they want to change the choice.



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