Preparation and prevention:
Courses consist of home study combined with on-location meetings with Pamela. The home-study portion is completed via access to the Neufeld Institute's virtual campus, which houses course resources, a moderated discussion forum, and monthly live on-line Q&A sessions with Neufeld Institute faculty. The working "text book" for each course is a video-recordings of Dr. Neufeld teaching, and many supplementary resources are also available to students on the campus. A core component of these courses are the live classes in which Pamela will answer questions and discuss practical application of the approach in your family. For more information about the format of these courses, please contact Pamela.
Making Sense of Play:
This course is a must-see for all parents. Play is an essential need for children, but not just any play, a particular kind of play, and this type of play is becoming more and more endangered in today's results-based world. This course is geared toward younger children, but its application extends to all ages - including adults!
Making Sense of Preschoolers:
This course will equip you for the ages between two and six. Why are they so brazen? Why are they so unreasonable? What makes them disobey even when they know better? Why are they so impulsive and demanding? What is behind "MINE!" and "NO!"? This course will make sense of this magical age, and help us, as parents not just survive it, but enjoy it too.
Making Sense of Adolscence:
Just when things seem to stableize, along comes adolescence. One minute they act like adults, and the next like pre-schoolers. The child who called you the "best parent in the world" now suddenly is full of critisizm. the child who thought he "rocked" at everything now thinks he "sucks" at everything. What is healthy adolsecent development, and what is dangerous peer-interaction that can lead to the proverbial cliff-jumping? How do we navigate this period, making room for healthy independent development, and yet creating fail-safes, for those children who are just not maturing the way we would hope? These questions and more will be explored in this course.
Power to Parent (in three parts)
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The Vital Connection: What is the context for healthy development? How does a child's capacity for relationship deepen, and their yearning for independence take hold? How do emotions drive our children? Why can they be so aggressive? How are we to deal with the day-to day challenges of sleep probems, defience and discipline issues? How do we get them to pick up their socks? Why are they mean to their sisters? This course addresses the core factor that makes the biggest difference to the lives of our children. The Vital Connection is that relationship between parent and child from which all healthy development occurs.
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Helping Children Grow Up: This is part two of the Power to Parent course. Its focus is on growing independent functioning, and how children become their own persons and move out into their world. What does healthy development look like? How can we notice the danger signs of a child in trouble? What can we do to make room for our children's budding individuality? This course will explore the role of attachment, rest, and play in fostering the growth and maturity we all long to see in our children.
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Common Challenges: part three of the Power to Parent course, Common Challenges deals with the every-day problems faced by most every parent. What to do about the highly reactive child? How do we deal with the oppositional ones? What about the child who cries over everything, or fights about everything? How to make sense of the highly-anxious child? These and many other common challenges will be addressed in this course.