Passionate Parenting

One can read all the books, magazines and articles on-line about parenting. But nothing is better than sitting face to face with an expert and have your individual questions answered, sharing their knowledge, meeting other parents and improving your parenting skills. You can change your and your child's life with parent education.

DISCOUNTS: If you register and pre-pay for 4 or more seminars, you will receive a 14% discount. Instead of €35 per seminar, you'd pay €30 or €120 for 4. More below.

SEMINAR TOPICS 2011 - 2012

DESCRIPTIONS of SEMINARS

September 28: Dutch Wills, Testaments & Guardianship

Every expat parent should have a Dutch will to avoid legal or tax-related problems, should the un-thinkable happen. Especially, a guardian, for your children's sake. If you die while resident in the Netherlands, your entire estate is subject to Dutch inheritance tax. The courts could take custody of your children. Yolanda Bokhorst will give parents need-to-know information on how to get it done quickly and painlessly.

October 10: Amazing Adolescence or Terrifying Teens?

Adolescence is a time of profound change – physically, emotionally, intellectually and socially, our sons and daughters transform before our very eyes. The process is exciting and wonderful on the one hand but also puzzling and exasperating! Child Psychologist, Katherine Fortier, will talk about how your child is changing and how you can help them as they navigate these choppy waters and face the issues of peer pressure self-identity, sexual development and curiosity, organization and motivation at school, emotional well-being and communication at home.

October 26: Who masters who? Do you master your emotions, or do your emotions master you?

Daily we encounter many conflict situations with our kids. Handling all these situations is challenging for us because emotions always play a role. It's important to recognise the origin of your emotions: are they a clear, neutral, trustworthy response to the present circumstances, or are these emotions merely a reaction 'polluted' by all kinds of associations with prior experiences, fears, judgement about yourself as a person or a parent? Our reactions can be 'in-effective'.

In this workshop Ruth Evers will give you some clear and useful insights that will help you distinguish feelings "taking over control" and your intuition supporting effective responses, in short: master your anger / emotions.

14 November: Productive Parenting

Do productive & fun parenting co-exist, given all our home, work & family pressures? How can we keep up-beat and energised when we are juggling many balls in the air at once: Meals (healthy ones), sports, play dates, domestic duties, social events, vacation planning, bills, relationships? Learn about stress-free productivity, prioritising, time management and getting things done, the smart way with Stefanie Thomas.

7 December: Raising Bilingual Children

An excellent lecture by Eowyn Crisfield on how to raise multilingual children, with all the guidelines, practicalities and important details. This talk will answer many worrisome (language) questions for parents considering a crèche', peuterschool or primary school for their international children.

8 February: Teaching Problem Solving to Children

Children (and adults) frequently get stuck when dealing with new challenges. Parents often then step in too early to help, with the idea of ensuring that their children experience 'success'. However, children miss out on the frustrations and satisfactions of really puzzling things out for themselves and are encouraged to give up too easily. This seminar looks at how parents can stimulate genuine self-discovery in problem solving. The benefits of this approach are immediately visible and lasting. Children have great fun in exploring their own choices, boundaries; their self-confidence and creativity grows as they become more aware of their own potential. By Alison Sutton.

12 March: Families and Food Fights

Food is the fuel for our kids, but it is also the fuel that ignites many family-time fights. Katherine Fortier will talk about how to create more pleasant, peaceful mealtimes and also how to promote healthy behaviours and attitudes about food and eating. We'll focus on some of the common food-fight issues: coming when called, table manners, sitting still, fussy eaters, trying new foods. We'll also touch on how healthy behaviour patterns can help prevent eating disorders like obesity and anorexia.

16 April: Mindful Parenting

Mindful Parenting is a contemplative practice where we'll learn to see the wholeness and beauty in our children in each moment. We'll learn about living in the present, accepting situations, see through the surface appearances and behaviours, observe our thoughts, learn what to do in the "heat of the moment" so we can act with wisdom and compassion. Iris Bouwman, will help us connect better to our child/ ren.

If you would like to register, please use our online booking form.

June 18: Sort / Straighten / Shine / Standardize and Sustain a Happy Home
Running a household with children is as demanding as running a business. Max Ohlenschlager, will show you that stress free mornings (and evenings) are possible. At this seminar, you will acquire a system to declutter your house,  you’ll have gained insight in how to run a stress free household,  you’ll have learned an effective method for starting  ánd finishing chores, you’ll learn how your children can contribute to an organized home.

If you would like to register, please use our online booking form.

Raising Bilingual Children - Date to be confirmed, 7:30pm, €35

A lecture by Eowyn Crisfield (BA TESL, MA Applied Linguistics). Are you also teaching your child Dutch, French, German, Spanish or Arabic? Multicultural, multinational, multilingual? Eowyn offers an excellent lecture on how to raise multilingual children, with all the guidelines, practicalities and important details. This talk will answer many worrisome (language) questions for multi-national parents considering a creche, peuterschool or primary school for their international children. If you would like to register, please use our online booking form.

Intensive Language Planning Workshop with Eowyn

Many parents leave the child bilingualism seminar with a new commitment to their children's bilingual journey, but still have questions about how to best facilitate it. Parents raising children with more than one language have many decisions to make regarding language input, maintenance, and literacy, and need to think out the long-term consequences of the choices available to them.

Therefore, Eowyn is offering consultations for couples. She comes to your home, and together with parents will work towards creating a workable language plan for their family, giving them concrete guidance in all the steps of the process. At the end of the session your family will have 1-3 detailed language plans which would work for their family in different circumstances. The language plans will be inclusive – from birth, through formal education and literacy and on long-term language maintenance. Parents are required to complete an information questionnaire at least one week prior to the workshop. Date determined by demand. If you would like to register for a consultation, please use our online booking form. The cost is €165 per family. Booking through Passionate Parenting gains you a discount of €15 or €150.

We are always looking for new topics and good speakers.

Please contact us if you have any suggestions or ideas by using our contact form.