4-Week Stressed Teens Mindful Conversations for Parents

SCHEDULE and SESSION DETAILS

September 10th, 2018 - October 1st, 2018

 

4 SESSION SCHEDULE

Weekly Live Class Dates and Times:

Week 1: September 10th 4:30PM-6:30PM PT: 2.0 hours of LIVE time with Gina, Ana, and Kerri

Week 2: September 17th 4:30PM-6:00PM PT: 1.5 hours of LIVE  time with Gina, Ana, and Kerri

Week 3: September 24th 4:30PM-6:00PM PT: 1.5 hours of LIVE  time with Gina, Ana, and Kerri

Week 4: October 1st 4:30PM-6:00PM PT: 1.5 hours of LIVE  time with Gina, Ana, and Kerri

6 Hours: LIVE experiential group time with Gina, Ana, and Kerri in a large group

Note an asterisk (*) means a skip in consecutive weeks

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Weekly Session Details

Weekly Session Content:

  • Check-in and short mindful practice (15-20 mins)
  • Content and Discussion (45 mins)
  • Table-side chat (30 mins)

 

Each Week:

 

Live Class Week 1: Teen Stress and the Effects on Home, Learning, and School

The focus of our first class will be in introducing ourselves and getting to know each other. In creating our class community, we will build a foundation or context for our shared exploration of content-related issues. Bringing mindfulness into parenting and/or mindfulness-based parenting practices is at the core and participants will learn and discuss:

Live Class Week 2: Mental Health and Well-Being: Strategies for Staying Well

A discussion of stress as a problem and mental health and well-being as solutions. A beginning into mindfulness practice and related topics relevant to exploring mental "wellness" as opposed to "mental illness."

Live Class Week 3: Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction for Teens In and Out of the Home

Putting Approach and Understandings into Practice. Exploring the mindful qualities of gratitude, compassion, letting go, trust, acceptance, empathy, patience, curiosity, generosity, non judging, forgiveness, being v. doing, loving-kindness, beginner’s mind, and going with the flow

Live Class Week 4  The Teenage Brain: Positive Neuroplasticity

■ How to help teens and young adults turn positive experiences into lasting resources for safety, satisfaction, and connection.

■ Discuss recent advances in positive neuroplasticity that cultivate the four levels of self‐care for teens and young adults.
■ How to teach teens and young adults to shift from reacting impulsively to responding mindfully to stress.

Course Rationale

The framework for this series of conversations is specifically designed to initiate much-needed conversations about our responsibilities as parents and the role we play in our children’s lives.

Our purpose is to transmit information and share knowledge as much as it is to help parents build core skills by engaging in selected topics that can be applied to and transferred to other situations parents will encounter over time. Our goal/intention is to provide parents with some strategies for implementing mindfulness-based practices to parenting. We realize that the topics or issues that parents are faced with change over time given the ages and stages of their kids and the new knowledge they acquire. However, many of us learn to parent as we parent and need support as we continue to develop in our role as parents.

We see all of us as potential change makers.

Reflection and Feedback

Self-reflection about what participants learned and what they will do with new knowledge and experiences. Participants will also reflect on the questions and issues they came to group with and share new questions they leave with or areas they would like to dive deeper into.

Ana & Kerri, authors of Love Letters for Parents, draw on their experiences in sharing resources and connecting (via creating mindfulSLO, REACH Club and Connect Be Well) to offer an opportunity for parents and professionals/educators to connect and collaborate.

Parenting takes courage and vulnerability and is a “minefield for shame” (Brene Brown on Krista Tippett's On Being Radio Show). We’ve learned that it is important to recognize this and create a supportive community to navigate this life stage with. Parents need to know and feel that they are not alone, that raising kids today requires having a strong village of support, that there is much to gain from reaching out to others, and that together (in working with others) they can do great things for many.

We’ve learned that knowledge, connection, and collaboration are essential and can be very powerful.  Through our work, we’ve been focusing on creating healthy conversations, navigating the waves of parenting and sharing helpful resources and tools from our journey. We invite you to share and become part of our learning community.

How Do We Do This? A Framework

  1. First class as an opportunity to get to know each other and issues they are navigating as parents.
  2. Establish framework as helping parents create community with other parents with similar needs and goals.
  3. Discuss and share ways that they can help teens build their own communities of support (REACH Club)
  4. Offer ideas for programmatic ways to/can create community:
  5. Books clubs- providing a list of suggested readings
  6. Videos to prompt discussions/conversations
  7. Informal and small Coffee chats (e.g., weekday afternoon or Sat morning) or Formal and larger evening Parent Night
  8. Community Building as a focus of course. Course intent is informing, supporting, and being a resource for others and groups for each other.
  • Our idea is to encourage and empower parents to be change agents in their own families, communities and schools.

We, Ana, Kerri and Gina, see ourselves as planting seeds to nurture communities of parents around a set of core topics (e.g., resilience, relationships, mental, social and emotional well-being, nurturing a growth mindset, role of social media in relationships, identity development, and daily life)

Course Scope and Sequence of Series for Parents

  • Creating Community
  • Content areas to explore the process of community building and ways of offering support
  • Topics as information to guide conversations you bring to your own community.

Learning Objectives

(1) how to build awareness through mindfulness (noticing our own feelings, thoughts, and physical sensations related to situations);

(2) using reflective practice to identify what we know (or need to know) and how to put new understanding into practice;

(3) help build community among participants;

(4) ways to build one’s repertoire of concepts and ideas to have more ways to respond to kids and situations;

(5) creating opportunities to come together/connect with other parents and offer encouragement and support to each other as we take meaningful actions or work to learn and implement change;

(6) how to use our mindfulness knowledge and skills to model and encourage them for kids;

(7) changing our mindset on success, happiness, being and living (versus doing);

(8) explore how parents can support their teen in the ever-changing, complex and fast-paced life they are navigating;

(9) resources, tools, skills and strategies that can guide and support them on their journey; and

(10) bringing a mindful perspective to everyday situations that give us an opportunity to apply what we know, observe, and ask questions, as well as understand and change what we can.

After participating in this series of critical conversations, participants will better understand how to put mindfulness-based practices into practice, feel more supported in reaching out to others, and have the guidance, encouragement, and support of peers (including Ana, Kerri and Gina).

Who Should Participate

Anyone who has or works with teen(s) is welcome to join this collaboration of learning, sharing, and conversations. Gain new joined understandings on mindful topics in parenting that are relevant to today's teens.