DAY 1: November 6, 2023

Workshop #1: Towards Flourishing Children: Answering the Four Irreducible Needs of a Child

PRESENTED BY Gordon Neufeld, Ph.D.

MORNING SESSION | 8:30am - 11:45am

COURSE DESCRIPTION:

This session is available for live stream.

We all want our children and students to thrive – to become all they were meant to be, despite the challenges they may face. But how is this to be accomplished? What conditions are required for optimal functioning? What experiences are essential to the unfolding of human potential? Dr. Neufeld will put the pieces together to reveal rather surprising answers to this quintessential question of human development.  A consciousness of the irreducible needs of children and youth is a much-needed antidote to a society that has become outcome driven and a culture that has lost its intuitive wisdom.

COURSE OBJECTIVES:

• Updating Maslow’s hierarchy of needs

• Learning the keys to emotional health and well-being

• Appreciating the role of play and playfulness in the unfolding of potential

• Learning the natural blueprint for spontaneous development

Workshop #2: The Neuroscience of Flourishing: How the Brain Works & What It Needs to Work

PRESENTED BY Eva de Gosztonyi, M.A.

MORNING SESSION | 8:30am to 11:45am

COURSE DESCRIPTION:

This session is available for live stream.

The human brain is complex and we very far from uncovering its many mysteries. Neuroscientific research is starting to get a glimmer of the complexity of its functioning. This presentation will outline the broad strokes of some of the key findings and their implications for those raising and educating children. It will then focus on what we as caring adults can do to help our children so their brains can flourish. The Neufeld paradigm provides us with the keys to understanding what our children need – faith in maturation, respect for vulnerability and defenses, the role of emotional expression, the need for play, and the all-important role of a strong child-adult attachment. These guiding principles have been used in schools in Quebec for a number of years and many easily applicable practices are now being used successfully. These include how to create strong child-adult relationships; how to protect vulnerable students and help them to stay out of trouble; ways of increasing emotional expression in the classroom, and guidelines for ensuring that essential play time is protected.

COURSE OBJECTIVES:

• Explain the role of key areas of the brain in the developing child

• Increase child-adult attachment using strategies presented

• Describe a procedure for helping students to stay out of trouble

• Implement at least one activity for increasing emotional expression in the classroom

• Explain why play is important for the developing brain

Workshop #3: Making Sense of Attention Problems

PRESENTED BY Deborah MacNamara, Ph.D.

AFTERNOON SESSION | 12:45pm - 4:00pm

COURSE DESCRIPTION:

This session is available for live stream.

What has happened to our kid’s attention and lack of engagement in play or learning? Can we simply blame technology or is there something else we have missed? Attention and agitation issues are increasing at alarming rates among our children and youth. Restlessness can pose challenges for learning and behaviour at home and school leaving adults overwhelmed in wondering how to make headway with a child or teen. In trying to alleviate symptoms we can unknowingly employ measures that serves to exacerbate their attention problem. There is much that can be done to help bring a child to rest by understanding the two common roots of attention problems.

COURSE OBJECTIVES:

• Understand the role of immaturity and alarm in attention problems

• Examine the role of emotional defenses in creating attention issues

• Provide strategies for making headway on attention issues based in immaturity

• Provide strategies for making headway on attention issues based in heightened and stuck alarm

Workshop #4: Neufeld's Traffic Circle of Frustration: A Revolutionary Approach to Aggression, Depression & Suicide

PRESENTED BY Tamara Strijack, M.A.

AFTERNOON SESSION | 12:45pm - 4:00pm

COURSE DESCRIPTION:

This session is available for live stream.

We all get frustrated, as this primal emotion is automatically evoked when something – anything for that matter – doesn’t work. There are several indicators that the groundswell of frustration is rising. This powerful emotion can be experienced in many ways and have a myriad of outcomes. Included in the array of emotional outcomes are compulsions regarding change, attacking impulses, suicidal impulses, aggression, and even frustration-based depression. Frustration can also result in healthy change and inner transformation. Tamara Strijack will help us walk through the traffic circle of frustration in a way that benefits all. Given the critical importance of developing a healthy relationship with frustration, we should all be ready to serve as traffic directors when needed.

COURSE OBJECTIVES:

• Understanding the underlying roots of aggression and depression

• Appreciating the key role that frustration is meant to play in our lives

• Recognizing when pivotal feelings are missing that need restoring

• Knowing the symptoms, signs and challenges when frustration gets stuck

• Making sense of why some of our current behaviour management approaches backfire

• Knowing how to direct traffic when frustration needs to find an outlet