Parent Workshop Survey

Parents, we are planning our Fall 2021 Parent Workshop and want to know – WHAT TOPICS DO YOU WANT TO SEE?!

Please complete this short survey to rank the workshop sessions you would like to see. We will choose the top 4 for our 4-week workshop this fall! Workshop session descriptions are below.

Survey: https://bit.ly/GSL-Workshop-Survey

Essential Skills for Learning and Life 

• From birth children begin learning about the world around them. There are some essential skills that help set children up for success in learning and in life. Essential Skills for Learning and Life will help parents and providers learn about social emotional intelligence, the critical skills children need to learn and how you can incorporate them into everyday interactions with young children and gain resources to support skill building.  This session includes information about social emotional health. 

Mindfulness for Children 

• The world can be a stressful place, even for young children. Mindfulness is a strategy to address and manage stress and includes skills and techniques that can help prevent the negative effects of stress. Techniques of mindful awareness can help children learn to pay closer attention to their thoughts, feelings and emotions. This workshop will help participants learn ways to help children reduce stress and anxiety to enhance their well-being, explore what the research says about mindfulness, get ideas for mindfulness activities and explore children’s literacy that supports mindfulness practices.

Positive Discipline

• Helping young children learn self-control is important to their ability to be successful citizens now and in the future.  Adults play an important role in creating appropriate environments and experiences which can strengthen that development. This workshop will help participants learn about factors that promote self-discipline, increase awareness of our personal role in creating an environment where discipline and self-control are learned and practiced, and gain new ideas for personal actions that we can take to maintain the positive environment we are looking for and to promote self-control.

Talking to Your Child About Race

• This session will help parents and other caregivers explore race and racism and its impacts on children. The presentation will include conversations about why engaging with children around race is critical. Participants will learn some strategies and tips for beginning to have dialogues about race with their children.  Learning Objectives:
  • Learn about racism and its effects on children and families. 
  • Learn why engaging with children about race and racism is critical for all parents.
  • Learn strategies to engage your child in dialogues about race and racism.

Purpose of Play

• Play is a child’s work! Children need quality play experiences in early childhood to help them learn and develop. The Purpose of Play will help parents and caregivers discover why play-based education for young children is so critical to their social, emotional, language, cognitive and physical development. This workshop will help participants learn about why play matters, discuss why children today are not having play based experiences at home, examine the value of outdoor, sensory and pretend play experiences, learn about the skills learned through play and learn strategies to support play experiences for young children.

Screen Time for Young Children

• Screens are everywhere, and young children are spending more and more time in front of them. Screens and media can be a great way for children to learn, but it may also have a negative impact on their development. This workshop will help participants learn about how screen time and other media exposure impacts children, learn the screen time recommendations for infants, toddlers, and young children and understand ways to decrease screen time for young children.