Books
Sample Speaking Topics
PARENTS | TEACHERS | COUNSELORS | LIBRARIANS | CHILDREN | WRITERS
FOR PARENTS AND OTHER ADULTS
* Helping Siblings Get Along
Brothers and sisters can be wonderful friends and companions, but they also bicker and argue and tattle and tease. This talk draws from research, clinical knowledge, and the speaker's own experience as a mother of four. With humor and compassion, it describes practical strategies for minimizing sibling squabbles, coping with unavoidable friction, and helping brothers and sisters learn positive people skills.
* The Social Curriculum: Five People Skills Every Child Needs to Learn
Nearly every child has trouble with social relationships in some way, at some time. This presentation describes five essential people skills that are part of the unspoken social curriculum for school-age children. It offers parents practical ideas for helping children to feel more comfortable and confident in social situations.
* Emotion Coaching: Helping Your Child Cope With Feelings
We can’t guarantee that our children’s lives will be trouble-free, but we can help them develop the skills they need to cope with their feelings. This presentation offers ways to prevent or minimize children’s emotional “melt-downs.” It describes strategies parents can use to help children manage negative feelings and cultivate positive feelings.
* Raising Daughters / Raising Sons (Two-part presentation)
Boys and girls face many of the same issues growing up, but they also face gender-specific challenges. This two-part presentation offers participants opportunities to learn, share, and reflect about gender issues. The session on daughters focuses on helping girls to accept their bodies, find their voice, and own their accomplishments. The session on sons focuses on helping boys channel their physicality, communicate their feelings, and build relationships. Both sessions emphasize ways that parents can be a strong, clear voice, guiding children beyond stereotypes, toward their authentic selves.
* Beyond Busyness: Finding Balance in Today’s Hectic, Time-Pressured World
Do you feel like there aren't enough hours in a day to do everything you have to do? Is your life so hectic that you rarely have a free moment for yourself? Is your busy lifestyle wearing you down? This presentation explores the epidemic of busyness in our culture. It describes the costs of our nonstop pace of life. It offers practical strategies for coping with fully filled schedules and finding personal fulfillment.
* Myths and Truths About Coping With Loss
False beliefs about how people “should” grieve can make coping with loss harder than it has to be. This compassionate presentation dispels five common myths about grief and offers comforting alternatives.
FOR TEACHERS
* Teaching Children People Skills Through Literature and Activities
People skills are an essential, but often unacknowledged, part of every school curriculum. This presentation describes five people skills that are also common themes in children's literature: Reaching Out, Pulling Back, Blending In, Speaking Up, and Letting Go. Participants will explore books related to each theme and learn classroom activities to help children gain these essential skills.
* Coaching the Child Who Struggles Socially
Sometimes particular children need extra help in learning to get along with others. This presentation outlines typical social development and describes common social struggles. Using a case study format, participants will discuss strategies for helping children develop the social skills they'll need through out their lives. (Can be offered in combination with “Teaching Children People Skills” to provide an all-day workshop.)
* Helping Children Manage Feelings
Feelings are an important part of who we are and how we relate to others. They color our outlook on the world. Children’s feelings tend to be frequent and intense. This presentation offers an overview of children’s emotional development. It focuses on practical strategies for helping children understand and cope with their feelings.
* Getting Unstuck: Breaking Free of Power Struggles and Managing Our Own Emotions While Working With Children
Working with children is delightful, meaningful, and fun, but it can also be frustrating, exhausting, and discouraging. This presentation allows participants to take an honest look at some of the not-so-pretty feelings that can come up when working with children and to learn and share effective coping strategies. (Can be offered in combination with “Helping Children Manage Feelings” to provide an all-day workshop.)
FOR MENTAL HEALTH PROFESSIONALS
* Anger Management
Problems involving anger are among of the most common reasons that children and teens are referred to counselors. This presentation offers practical strategies that counselors can use to understand and respond constructively to anger issues. It discusses handling “melt-downs,” building the motivation to change, identifying the hidden emotions that often lie behind anger, enhancing communication skills, and cultivating empathy.
* Treating the Emotional Side of Parenting
Few things in life evoke more intense emotions than being a parent. People expect that having kids will make them happy, yet aggregate data and daily experience often tell a different story. The flip side of the intense love that most people feel for their children is the intense anger, fear, and guilt that often emerges in or from parent-child interactions. This presentation offers clinicians practical strategies for helping parents cope with their own and their children’s emotions. It focuses on ways to increase family harmony and to help clients become the kind of parents they want to be.
* Lifting the Burden of Potential
For bright children, a focus on achievement too often eclipses other aspects of their development. Because they can perform, and that performance seems so important to everyone around them, they may start to believe that they are the performance. Whether they are generally good students, officially labeled “gifted,” or routinely admonished that they “could do better” if only they tried, many of these children feel burdened by expectations and terrified of failure.
The antidote is to help children cultivate a broad self-definition that encompasses not only their abilities, but also their humanity. Drawing from research and clinical experience, this presentation offers practical strategies to help bright children cope with perfectionism, build connection with their peers, and find joy.
* So You’d Like to Write a Book on Psychology
Are you passionate about a certain topic in psychology? Do you have some special expertise that you'd like to share? Have you had an experience as a therapist or in your personal life that inspires you and could help others? Do you just love to write? If you've ever dreamed of writing a book, this practical and candid presentation can show you how to turn that dream into reality. Whether you have a specific book topic in mind, or you're just wondering about the publishing process, come meet with an experienced author to learn about the journey from idea to published book.
FOR LIBRARIANS
* Are You Being Spread Too Thin?
So many good ideas! Not enough hours in the day! Trying to do more with less! How can you ensure that your energies go to the priorities that matter most for yourself and for your library? This practical and interactive workshop will help you learn to focus your energies and resources most productively. It describes strategies for saying “no,” using time effectively, and managing perfectionism.
FOR CHILDREN
* Speaking Up: Assertiveness for Kids (grades 2-5)
Assertiveness means being true to ourselves while also respecting others. Being too mean (aggressive) or too nice (passive) causes problems. Through discussion and role-play, children learn assertive ways of coping with everyday situations.
* Make Attention Getting Hats (preK-grade 1)
Craft activity linked to “What About Me? 12 Ways to Get Your Parents Attention Without Hitting Your Sister.”
* Building Teamwork Skills (grades 3-5)
What makes a team? What actions help build or break up teams? In this highly interactive workshop, children are introduced to amusing characters who act as “team busters.” They describe the social impact of the characters’ behavior and deduce the teamwork skills that the characters need to learn. Children then practice using these skills in fun, cooperative activities.
* It Takes Three (or More) to Bully (grades 3-5)
Research tells us that the key to stopping bullying is to rally observers to speak up. In this lively workshop, children perform and discuss a short play that highlights the importance of observer responses to bullying.
* Is It Bullying or Just a Disagreement? (grades 1-3)
Using a game-show format, teams of children decide whether scenarios constitute bullying or just a disagreement. For disagreements, they suggest possible solutions.
* The Power of No: Resisting Everyday Peer Pressure (grades 3-5)
Peer pressure isn’t just about drugs and alcohol, it’s also about the temptation to do things that are irresponsible or unkind. In this workshop, children learn a variety of ways to say no, and practice using them through role-play.
* The Benefit of the Doubt (grades 3-5)
Our legal system presumes that people are innocent until proven guilty. This is also a good policy for personal relationships. Children (and adults) who are prone to anger tend to assume that others’ actions stem from deliberate meanness. In this workshop, children discuss the importance of giving others the benefit of the doubt. Through role-play, they practice “arguing for the defense” when faced with common “kid crimes,” such as “He took my pencil!”
* Writing Lively Nonfiction (grades 3-5)
Interesting nonfiction starts with curiosity. Whereas a fiction writer begins by thinking, “What if?”, a nonfiction writer begins with “I wonder why or how or what?” Lively nonfiction excites the feelings and imagination of readers. This workshop describes different types of nonfiction and shows specific techniques for turning dull text into lively prose. It emphasizes the importance of revision.
FOR WRITERS
* Preventing and Overcoming Writer’s Block: Practical Strategies for Getting Unstuck
Writer’s block is a painful feeling of being stuck--unable to move forward with writing--that stems from anxiety. Like any creative undertaking, writing is inherently anxiety-provoking because it involves moving into unknown territory. Writer’s block occurs when anxiety escalates and interferes with starting, continuing, or finishing writing. To be productive, writers need ways to move past fear. This presentation describes practical strategies writers can use to find inspiration, build momentum, and cope with uncertainty in order to unleash their creativity.
* Child Development for Children’s Book Writers
Understanding child development is extremely important for children's book writers who want to create believable characters and stories that speak to children in meaningful ways. This presentation highlights three ingredients of good stories that are also themes in child development: conflict, challenges, and change. Participants will draw inspiration from their own experiences as they reflect on developmental changes in friendships, fears, and humor.
