The Learning Brain

Overview

Kids and parents alike are constantly under pressure. We’re here to help with guidance on friendships, self-confidence, coping skills, and more.

As a parent, you can’t make friends for your children, nor can you prevent them from ever feeling hurt or upset. But with the right guidance, you can support them in learning how to solve problems, cope with feelings, and build satisfying relationships. Raising Emotionally and Socially Healthy Kids gives you access to the same practical advice and actionable plans that Dr. Kennedy-Moore—a psychologist and author who serves on the advisory board for Parents magazine—shares with clients in her Princeton, New Jersey, practice.

Drawing from her extensive clinical experience, as well as personal experience as a mother of four, these 12 lectures provide a deeper understanding of your child’s development and ways to address common stumbling blocks with compassion. You’ll focus on emotional intelligence and the pivotal role parents can play in helping children understand and cope with their feelings. You’ll discover strategies for managing early-childhood meltdowns, inspiring cooperation, dealing with aggression, and helping children cope with anxiety.

In the latter half, you’ll turn to social intelligence and the challenges children face in making friends, plus practical ways you can guide them through the process. You’ll explore how to support your child in getting along with others, being a good sport, handling conflicts, dealing with bullying, and navigating gossip and cliques. The course concludes with a candid discussion of friendship in the digital age, looking at video game playing and the troubling phenomena of cyberbullying and “Facebook depression.”

Course Outline

01: Developing Your Child’s Emotional Intelligence

Learn techniques for teaching your children to understand and cope with their feelings, both in everyday situations and during meltdowns.

Duration: 34 min

02: Anxiety – The Way Out Is Through

Discover practical ways to help children cope with anxiety and the thoughts and behaviors that trigger it.

Duration: 31 min

03: How Kids Manage Anger – Positive Discipline

Explore constructive responses to children’s anger and gain strategies for inspiring cooperation while avoiding power struggles.

Duration: 30 min

04: Building Authentic Self-Esteem

Understand the developmental changes in children’s self-concepts and how parents can support authentic self-esteem at each stage.

Duration: 33 min

05: Teaching Kids to Care – The Roots of Empathy

Examine the components of empathy and learn ways to help children develop this essential skill.

Duration: 31 min

06: What Makes Kids Happy?

Gain strategies for guiding children in building a life that incorporates pleasure, engagement, and meaning.

Duration: 33 min

07: How Children Make Friends

Track the changes in children’s friendships and discover ways to support their social development.

Duration: 30 min

08: Playing Well with Others

Explore the stages of children’s play and understand its social and emotional importance.

Duration: 28 min

09: Making Up and Breaking Up with Friends

Learn how to support your child through conflicts and breakups with friends, including methods for resolution.

Duration: 28 min

10: Belonging, Status, Popularity, and Rejection

Investigate the characteristics linked to social status and how they affect children’s interactions and relationships.

Duration: 29 min

11: Teasing and Bullying

Understand the long-term effects of bullying and strategies to help your child if they are a target or perpetrator.

Duration: 28 min

12: Growing up Social in the Digital Age

Discover the parallels between online and face-to-face behaviors and how to educate children to navigate the web safely.

Duration: 32 min