Talking to parents around the country has been a fun, rewarding, and educational perk of my career. I would love to speak at your group’s next function. Below are some of the speeches I’ve presented before, as well as video clips of one of my seminars. If you’d like more information, please contact me.
The 7 Stages of Motherhood: Loving Your Life Without Losing Your Mind
Motherhood is the ultimate transformation, a powerful and thrilling metamorphosis. Yet most parenting experts focus on the how-tos of baby and child care, not on the care or development of moms. This lecture, based on my book The 7 Stages of Motherhood, addresses the challenges and opportunities mothers face at every stage of motherhood - from pregnancy through the teen years. In addition to sharing anecdotes from my own experience raising Maddie and Nick, I will discuss how to:
- Be a mother, not Mother Teresa: Learn how to remain front and center in your family’s life, but not always last on your list.
- Put "Find Lego man’s hair" on your to-do list: Those small acts of caring count!
- Avoid parenting by guilt: Give your kids the gift of loving limits.
- Don’t compete in the Mommy Olympics: We all need some Mom to lean on.
The Secret of Play: How to Raise Smart, Healthy, Caring Kids from Birth to Age 12
When children play, they are exploring the world around them, developing who they are, making exciting discoveries, boosting their brainpower, strengthening relationships — and that’s just the beginning. Based on my book The Secret of Play, this lecture helps parents to:
- Enhance their children’s health, relationships, and learning
- Understand a child’s unique temperament — and to play to his/her strengths
- Avoid power struggles and discipline effectively
- Pick the best games/toys for children of all ages
How to Lose the Guilt and Make the Most of Parenthood
All mothers, whether they work outside the home or not, know that guilt is endemic to motherhood. But parenting by guilt is a trap that makes it difficult to discipline effectively, nurture one’s marriage, or find the balance we all need to be good parents. In this talk, I’ll talk about how moms and dads can:
- Put an end to the "chore wars."
- Discipline as a team.
- Avoid the "Keeping up with the Joneses" syndrome.
- Think "empowerment" not "punishment" when it comes to setting loving limits.
Raising Caring Kids
We all want to raise children who accept responsibility, show compassion toward others, and act in ways that reflect the values critical to their academic, social, and emotional success. But often in an effort to spare our children unhappiness, we deprive them of the very skills we want to foster. This talk tackles what it takes to raise good kids in an often not-so-nice world. I’ll discuss how to:
- Think empowerment, not punishment when establishing rules and consequences
- Help children avoid peer pressure
- Protect kids from growing up too fast
- Enable children to separate and take responsibility for their actions
- Teach compassion
Nurturing Your Child’s Creativity
One of the joys of being a parent is watching our children’s natural creativity blossom. But did you know that creativity has been linked to better school performance, improved social skills, and emotional health? In an age when kids spend more time in front of a TV screen than they do in the classroom and when opportunities to build creative muscles are few and far between, you can still boost your child’s creativity, even if you’re all thumbs. A few tips:
- Keep play safe, simple, and uncensored.
- Enhance, don’t engineer.
- Emphasize process and reward effort.
- Build downtime into family time.
Parenting college-age kids
College is often as nerve-wracking for parents as it is for their child. Parents must negotiate unfamiliar territory, redefining both long-held boundaries and establishing new rules and roles. I’ve experienced several of these challenges firsthand, as both my son and daughter navigated their years away from home. We’ll discuss what you should do when your college-age kid says:
- Please send money, but don’t tell me how to spend it.
- I want to hear your voice, not your advice.
- I want to reinvent myself, but I don’t want anything to change at home.
- I want you to call me, but never before noon.
