Elgin Academy to host health, education symposium

Elgin Academy and Advocate Sherman Hospital in Elgin are hosting a Health and Education Symposium Oct. 18 featuring leading faculty, doctors and researchers in children's education and health.

The free event is 9 to 11:30 a.m. at the Elgin Academy campus, 350 Park St., Elgin. It is geared toward parents, professionals and children in the Fox Valley and suburban Chicago area.

"It's our second annual event," said Shannon Howell, assistant head of school for institutional advancement at Elgin Academy. "We team up with Advocate Health Systems with the idea of bringing in great speakers on topics that help parents, faculty and professionals who are in Elgin and the surrounding areas. Last year was really well received. It filled our theater."

Roughly 150 people attended last year's symposium.

This year's keynote address will be given by Catherine Steiner-Adair, an internationally recognized clinical psychologist, school consultant and author of "The Big Disconnect: Protecting Childhood and Family Relationships in the Digital Age."

"This topic touches everybody," Howell said. "How is technology changing communications with not only education, but within family structures. We're seeing new behaviors and new ways that people interact. (Technology) it's affecting how we learn and how we communicate. We seem pretty fractured with our one-on-one, face-to-face communication. There's always a screen available (to distract focus)."

Steiner-Adair's book focuses on how technology affects children's behavior, their brains and emotional development.

The symposium includes five breakout sessions with speakers discussing a variety of topics: good decision-making, communication choices that enhance family dynamics, testing, decoding different learning styles, and developing early healthy eating habits for kids.

"It's a chance for Elgin Academy to really bring in a lot of experts in their field and for the Fox Valley parents to get a lot of great information in a short amount of time," Howell said.

Attendance is open to anyone, but preregistration is required. For more information, visit elginacademy.org.