Tuning In To Kids: Emotionally Intelligent Parenting

Sunday, April 13. 6:00pm-7:30pm. Lopez Room.

Description 

Every person has the capacity for a huge range of emotional experience and expression. Parenting or caring for a child is a particular kind of emotional journey, bringing its own special rewards and challenges. For many parents, connecting with children during emotional moments is one of the most rewarding but also most challenging parts of parenting. Explore how "tuning in" to children’s feelings can teach children important lessons about their emotional experience and help parents to be closer to their children. Participate in exercises that increase emotional awareness, that locate emotions in the physical body, and that help children to regulate and express strong emotions such as anxiety and anger.

Presenter Bio 

Sophie Havighurst, PhD, University of Melbourne

Dr. Sophie Havighurst is a child clinical psychologist and lecturer at the University of Melbourne in Australia. She completed her degree in clinical psychology at the University of Canterbury in New Zealand before moving to Australia in 1999 to undertake a PhD at the University of Melbourne, examining how parenting around emotions was related to preschool children’s emotional competence, social skills, and behavioral functioning. Upon moving to Melbourne, Sophie began working with Ann Harley, a parent educator with 25 years experience in the field. They were both interested in developing a program that focused on parents’ responses to children’s emotions, rather than altering parents’ reactions to children’s positive or negative behaviors – the goal of most parenting programs. They drew on research from Dr. John Gottman and colleagues, which examined emotional communication in families, as well as research looking at the development of children’s emotional competence. This resulted in the Tuning in to Kids program – which teaches parents to emotion coach their children. Dr. Havighurst is the Principal Investigator on the Tuning in to Kids research program. The program is being evaluated as a primary prevention program with preschool children, as an early intervention (with preschool and school-aged children with behavior problems), and as a program helping children in the transition to high school (Tuning in to Teens). Sophie supervises a number of research students on these studies, teaches child and adolescent mental health practitioners, and works at the Children’s Court Clinic and in private practice.