Are the kids alright?

Navigating mental health  after two years in a pandemic has been difficult on children and adults alike. We went from being stuck at home, afraid to visit the shops, to back to school on rotation, back home, back to school, all the while wearing masks and being aware of the stress Covid has affected all of us with – be that financial, mental, emotional or just purely different.

Parents have had to learn new skills working from home and having kids on board. As life changes again and some restrictions are lifted – what have we learnt? And how can we improve ourselves as parents to do justice to the little lives in our care?

The upcoming Children’s Mental Health Symposium will empower parents, teachers and other professionals with tools to foster psychological wellness and resilience in children. This is an online conference where you can listen to experts on all sorts of child psychology topics from their mental health, to parenting techniques and ways to handle trauma.

After seven sold-out conferences, the Institute of Child Psychology continues striving to provide parents, caregivers, and professionals with a diverse group of experts to help support children struggling with mental health. ICP’s annual three-day symposium will take place April 22-24,  2022.  This global event brings together thousands of people from every corner of the world. 

The Institute of Child Psychology has introduced a slate of new topics from navigating stress and building powerful relationships, to helping children with anxiety and low self-esteem — the  conference will explore many of today’s most significant challenges facing our youth. The symposium is key-noted by 3 prestigious speakers: world renowned experts in the field of  children’s mental health and New York Times Best-Selling authors and clinicians: Dr. Jennifer  Mullan, Dr. Rick Hanson, and Dr. Tina Payne Bryson. They will also be joined throughout the weekend by other renowned professionals such as Dr. Gordon Neufeld, Dr. Lawrence J. Cohen, Dr. Ann-Louise Lockhart, Dr. Becky Kennedy, Dr.  Jenny Woo, Kim John Payne, & many more. 

This full weekend event is not a collection of one-hour topics; but instead, focuses on half and  full day workshops that are brimming with the latest research, tools, and strategies. The Institute’s vision is that parents and professionals will walk away from the symposium with a toolbox of new ideas and strategies to help children and adults work together on the problems they face.

I was reading through the program to try and get a feel for the themes of the conference and I have grouped them into these categories:

Being there

I think Dr Tina Payne Bryson’s topic of “The Power of Showing up” is definitely something we can all agree is important. Just being there for your child consistently is powerful. She is the author of a book of the same name as well as The Bottom Line for Baby and The Whole Brained Child.

There’s another speaker in a similar vein: “The Dance of Attachment.” (Dr Gordon Neuford, author of Hold On To Your Kids)

Parenting

There are quite a lot of speakers on this topic. We have:

• Parenting with Healthy Boundaries. (Dr. Gaiathry Jeyarajan, author of Ella’s Choice)
• Principals of Playful Parenting (Dr Lawrence Cohen, author of Playful Parenting)(and another one related here : Therapeutic Play: Tammy Schamuhn, M.Sc -co-founder of the conference)
• Hunt, gather, parent (Dr Michaleen Doucleff, author of Hunt, gather, parent)
• Shame proof parenting (Mercedes Samudio, author of Shame Proof Parenting)
• Holistic Parenting (Dr Madiha Saeed, author of The Holistic Rx)
• Simplicity Parenting (Kim John Payne, M.Ed, author of Simplicity Parenting)

Children’s mental health

There’s a lot here not only on mental health, but also trauma and anxiety:

• The neuropathic perspective on children’s mental health (Dr Christin Bjorndal, author of Beyond the Label)
• The trauma informed classroom (Jennifer Alexander, M.A., author of Building Trauma Sensitive Schools)
• Childhood trauma (Morgan Bisseger. R. Psych, psychologist and play therapist)
• Childhood anxiety (Tania Johnson, R. Psych – South African psychologist and play therapist, also a co-founder of the conference)
• Understanding deeply feeling kids (Dr Becky Kennedy, author of Good Inside)
• How to support children’s emotional and social development (Dr Jenny Woo, author of 52 Essential Conversations)
• Staying present: parenting through trauma (actually that one joins a few categories…) (Dr Jennifer Mulan, author of Decolonizing Therapy)

Age specific

Got a baby or a teen? Here’s help for you:

• Raising healthy teens (Dr Ann-Louise Lockhart, who writes for PBS Parents and The Gottman Institute.)
• The fourth trimester (Samantha Dover, R. Psych; she also did the sex talk)

Talking to your kids about difficult topics

We often don’t know how to broach these things and here the experts weigh in.

• Talking to children about race and discrimination (Aynsley Graham, an independent behaviour consultant, and Amanda MacDonald, a child and youth care counsellor)
• Exploring gender identify and sexual orientation in youth (Janine Groeneveld, R. Psych & Jan Marie Chrzanowski, R. Psych)
• Talking to children about sex, relationships and consent (Samantha Dover, R. Psych, a psychologist who has also worked in a child protection centre)

Family Specific

Are you in a situation where you are dealing with different children joined from different parents? This one might be for you: “Navigating Blended Families.” The speaker is Christin Crocker, R. Psych, a psychologist trained in marriage and family therapy.

What we really want for our child

There are two talks here that I think speak to our desire for a healthy child who will grow up into a competent, balanced and happy adult.

• The self-driven child (Dr William Stixrud, author of a book of the same name)
• The neuroscience of happiness (Dr Rick Hanson, author of Resilient and Hardwiring Happiness)

You can check out the full program in this document. The times are in MST (Mountain Standard Time) which is 8 hours behind SA but bear in mind that if you buy a pass you will have access to all the recordings for 60 days.

Register today and use the discount code 1STEPATATIME2022 for a 20% savings!

This is an exclusive chance to hear from experts on topics that really matter.

Would you like to win a weekend pass worth $214.99 ?!!

All you have to do is follow the prompts on the Rafflecopter below to promote this event and you will be entered into the competition.

UPDATE: there seems to be some technical problems with Rafflecoper – if you leave a comment I will also include you!

1. This competition will run until the conference. The winner will be announced on the Facebook page, and emailed.
2. The prize is not transferable.
3. If you have won on SA Mom Blogs in the past 3 months you will not be eligible to win this competition.
4. If you win the same prize on another site then you forfeit this one.
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