Three Glenbard Parent Series events focus on calm parenting
The Glenbard Parent Series: Navigating Healthy Families will present "A Day with Dr. Laura Kastner" on Thursday, March 8.
There will be three presentations:
• "Getting to Calm - Cool-Headed Strategies for Raising Independent 3- to 7-Year-Olds": 9:30 a.m. at Marquardt School District 15 Administration Center, 1860 Glen Ellyn Road in Glendale Heights. After the baby years, discipline becomes an important aspect of parenting because children must learn to cooperate with reasonable behavioral expectations. Balancing this with self-care and a loving bond can be a challenge. Kastner will share positive discipline strategies and discuss the importance of understanding a child's developmental stage and temperament.
• "Getting to Calm - Cool Headed Strategies for Parenting Tweens and Teens": Noon at Marquardt School District 15 Administration Center, 1860 Glen Ellyn Road in Glendale Heights. Adolescents' impulsive risk-taking, defiance, and attitude are nothing new. What is new is the science of why and the optimal strategies for management. This presentation weaves together information about adolescent development and family dynamics with some of the latest findings on human biology to explain why teens do the things they do, why parents often trip up in their responses, and how to bring out the best in teens and adults.
• "Calm Parenting for Tough Teen Topics - Healthy Relationships, Substance Use, Media Management and Worry": 7 p.m. at Glenbard West High School, 670 Crescent Blvd. in Glen Ellyn. All parents want their children to become happy, healthy, and successful adults, but encouraging academic and athletic achievement may no longer suffice. Screen invasion has radically changed family life, bringing with it unique pressures. The higher stress for kids today can play a role in mental health problems such as depression, anxiety, and substance abuse. Kastner offers evidence-based parenting recommendations to develop a strong parent-child bond, nurture emotional and social competencies, and break through the communication gap so that teens develop the resilience skills to cope with their own challenges.
Kastner is a clinical psychologist, author of several books on pediatric psychology and professor in the department of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at the University of Washington.
GPS is generously sponsored by the Cebrin Goodman Center, Cooperative Association for Special Education (CASE), College of DuPage, DuPage Medical Group, Emmy Gaffey Foundation and Trust Company of Illinois.
For information, visit glenbardgps.org or contact Gilda Ross, Glenbard District 87 student and community projects coordinator, at (630) 942-7668 or gilda_ross@glenbard.org.