Strength-Based Parenting: Small Shifts Can Make a Positive Difference in Your Kids
Parenting is simultaneously the most joyous and stressful role. It is overwhelming not only due to the pressure we face juggling work and family but also due to the burdens our children face – intense academic pressures, social media, cyber-bullying, self-harm trends, alcohol, teen suicide and so on. The temptation is to pull our kids close to protect them…maybe even over-protect them.
But we can’t be there for our kids all the time – it’s exhausting, it’s practically impossible, and it’s not effective in the end. Not to mention the fact that our kids don’t want us to be there all the time. They need their space just like we do. We can’t always protect our kids from the outside world, but we can build them up from the inside and make them psychologically strong.
So, what does that look like? This is a question I’ve been driving by, both as a mother and as a psychologist, for the past 15 years. What my research shows is that you can build inner resilience in your kids by helping them to see and use their own strengths to navigate life’s challenges.
In fact, my published research has shown that Strength-Based Parenting is linked to:
– Higher levels of life satisfaction, self-efficacy, and positive emotions.
– Lower levels of depression and anxiety.
– Better ability to cope with friendship issues and homework challenges and better grades.
This keynote weaves together science and stories to provide the audience with an understanding of taking a strength-based approach to parenting. Why it is important. How they can become more strength-based and what benefits they can expect for their kids and themselves.
– The three elements that make up a true strength.
– How to deal with weakness and problem-behavior in more constructive ways.
– How to more easily and consistently spot strengths in their children.
FORMAT: 60-minute keynote.
IDEAL AUDIENCES: Parents, teachers, family therapists, or anyone working with children, parents and families.
WHAT MAKES THIS PRESENTATION UNIQUE: Lea offers her audience a unique blend of science and practice. As a leading positive psychology researcher and president of the International Positive Psychology Association (IPPA), Lea is deeply active in the science. Her warm, personal style, practical way of thinking and her work with schools and parents mean she is able translate the science to make it real and actionable for her audience.
Strength-Based Teaching: Bringing Out the Best in Students and Teachers
Every teacher wants to bring out the best in their students, yet our broader education systems are often deficit-oriented and focus more on poor performance, problem behavior, and correcting weakness than on building strength. What’s more, in the day-to-day rush of schools and with pressures to get through curriculum, strengths can get left behind which is demoralizing for teachers and students alike.
This keynote explores three decades of research showing the advantages of taking a strength- based approach for students, including greater levels of happiness at school, higher student engagement, smoother transitions from kindergarten to elementary school, more successful adjustment from elementary to middle school, and higher levels of academic achievement.
Lea will also share the latest research showing the benefits of strength-based teaching for the teachers themselves. Teachers will learn how to identify and utilize their own strengths and help their students play to their strengths.
Having helped schools to implement positive education in the United States, Australia, New Zealand, Denmark, Hong Kong, China, Canada, and the United Arab Emirates, Lea weaves together her science with concrete school examples and best practices to help teachers make wellbeing more visible in their classrooms.
CORE LEARNING OBJECTIVES:
– Key research findings linking strengths to wellbeing and academic achievement.
– Best practices for introducing strengths into the classroom.
– Practical methods for how to embed strengths into the staffroom.
FORMAT: 60-minute keynote.
IDEAL AUDIENCES: Teachers, Principals, School Administrators, Teaching Assistants, School Counselors, Psychologists, Schools Nurses, Mental Health Staff.
Making Wellbeing Visible in Schools
Student wellbeing has become a focus of international education policy for global organizations such as the World Health Organization (WHO), the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), and the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development’s (OECD) Center for Educational Research and Innovation reports that more than 70% of OECD countries have wellbeing as an explicit goal of their National Curriculums.
Schools are challenged to turn this global wellbeing policy into concrete school practice. To assist schools with this challenge, Lea Waters, PhD, a trained psychologist and positive psychology expert, shows schools how to combine the science of wellbeing with the science of learning to make wellbeing visible in all classes and across co-curricular.
This keynote will explore the factors that are shaping more and more schools to adopt intentional and strategic approaches that build student wellbeing. The application of positive psychology in schools will be presented and teachers will learn about the Visual Wellbeing SEARCH framework, developed by Dr. Waters from her published bibliometric analysis of over 18,000 journal articles. The keynote will show practical ideas for how the SEARCH framework has been adopted in schools across the world to better support the wellbeing of students, faculty, and staff across the whole school.
Having helped schools to implement positive education in the United States, Australia, New Zealand, Denmark, Hong Kong, China, Canada, and the United Arab Emirates, Lea weaves together her science with concrete school examples and best practices to help teachers make wellbeing more visible in their classrooms.
CORE LEARNING OBJECTIVES:
– Latest statistics in youth mental health
– Research showing how and why wellbeing is a key resource for students to build
– Key research findings that clearly links wellbeing and academic achievement
– Introduction to the Visible Wellbeing SEARCH framework
FORMAT: 60-minute keynote.
IDEAL AUDIENCES: Principals, School Administrators, Teachers, Teaching Assistants, School Counselors, Psychologists, Schools Nurses, Mental Health Staff, and Parents.
Strength-Based Parenting for Kids on the Spectrum: How Small Shifts Can Make a Big Difference
Parents with kids on the spectrum are all too familiar with being told about the deficits and challenges their children face. Yet, what happens when we consider the upside that comes along with having a different neurotype? Like all kids, those along the spectrum have both strengths and weaknesses – the two don’t cancel each other out. Building up strengths can occur at the same time as we work with challenges. The problems and differences for kids on the spectrum don’t negate the many strengths these children have and yet it is typical for schools, psychologists and others to focus on the negative.
Strength-based parenting is an approach that helps parents see the upside, it provides a new way to see and enable kids along the spectrum and to build happy, peaceful family dynamics. By intentionally seeing and building strengths in your children (and yourself) you:
– can focus on the positives and thus, put the negative into perspective;
– build off the confidence of your child;
– see the big picture;
– use strengths to help overcome challenges;
– connect your child with people who have similar strengths and passions; and
– breathe a sigh of relief and see a positive pathway forward.
This presentation will introduce you to the science and practice of strength-based parenting developed by psychologist Dr. Lea Waters (PhD) and introduced in her acclaimed parenting book The Strength Switch.
In neurotypical samples, Lea’s research has shown that children and teens who have strength- based parents have:
– Higher levels of life satisfaction, self-efficacy, and positive emotions;
– Lower levels of depression and anxiety; and
– Better ability to cope with friendship issues and homework challenges and better grades.
SBP research also shows benefits for the parents themselves, including high confidence in parenting and more frequent positive emotions.
As a psychologist, Lea has a keen interest in the development and wellbeing of children along the spectrum and how it is we can sustain and uplift families on this journey. SBP is not about ignoring the challenges you face, rather it is about seeing these challenges through a different lens and about equipping you with strengths that assist with the challenges. SBP provides you with a lens that sees the full child and celebrates their uniqueness while also finding concrete ways to work with the trials of life.
FORMAT: 45 to 60-minute keynote; half and full-day workshops.
IDEAL AUDIENCE: Anyone raising or working with children with autism; such as parents, teachers, family therapists, school administrators, psychologists.
Strengths for Students
Lea Waters, PhD shares with students how they can take a preventative and strengths-based approach to dealing with the common stress of school. Students will discover how the school journey can be a positive one by taking a Growth Mindset to help grow life skills for the future; and that the point of school isn’t just about growing their grand point average. Students will also learn to identify stress and understand their body’s stress response to enable a proactive approach to the management of stress and normalize the often-felt feelings of overwhelm.
This presentation looks at how students can leverage their unique Character Strengths to assist with better studying, retention of information and maintaining wellbeing during this journey, in addition to looking at Gratitude in particular which has been shown to help buffer against stress.
After attending, students will be able to:
– Understand the Fight/Flight/Freeze Response and how to identify stress;
– Understand Growth Mindset;
– Know how to utilize Character Strengths to help with studying, wellbeing and buffering against stress.
FORMAT: 1-hour keynote or 2-3 hour workshop.
IDEAL AUDIENCE: Students from Grade 4 and up.
