Family Matters NY

PARENTING TALKS

Our Parenting Talks can be scheduled separately or as a series. We typically allow 1 and 1/2 hours for each talk. Following an informative presentation, we will answer questions and moderate group discussion on the following topics affecting parents of infants, toddlers and latency age children. We welcome suggestions and requests on other parenting-pertinent topics in addition to those listed below.

Setting Limits Without Getting Your Buttons Pushed.
Are time-outs without losing your temper possible? Are bribes always a bad thing? How to be clear, firm and direct when setting boundaries with spirited children.

Promoting Healthy Self-Esteem.
Is there such a thing as too much praise? Discussion of how praise and ‘constructive’ criticism impact a child’s sense of self, and how problem-solving and age-appropriate responsibility heighten self-esteem.

Playdate Politics and Peer Smarts.
How to help your child develop compassionate social skills and become a good friend, while you negotiate the challenges of different parenting styles and expectations. We’ll also discuss sharing, respectful play, food choices and other loaded issues a parent encounters when their child hits the social circuit.

New Parenthood: The End of The World As You Know It.
The transition to parenthood is loaded with joys and challenges. Navigating the changes can be tough on a couple's relationship. However, there are ways to strengthen and preserve connection with your partner. This talk will focus on how to avoid estrangement and conflict to cultivate greater intimacy and trust.

The In-law Dance:
Are your in-laws inviting or intrusive? Do you and your partner join forces or split into separate camps when grandparents come calling? This talk focuses on the variety of issues and emotions that come up when extended family participate in the life of your primary unit.

Sibling Survival:
Parenting two or more children can be a challenging and exhausting job. Siblinghood affords children intimate opportunities to learn the valuable life lessons of compassion, co-operation and compromise. When siblings co-exist harmoniously, life is a joy. But when they fight, parents are stressed to the max. This Talk focuses on how to defuse sibling tensions by looking at the underlying issues and assumptions that get in the way of effective parenting.

The Importance of Fathers:
Research shows clearly that paternal involvement is very important for a child’s emotional, social, and cognitive development. But fatherhood can be particularly complicated – dads often feel sidelined and unsupported.
We will discuss the wonderful benefits of involved fathers. We will explore what it has been like for Talk attendees to become fathers and how they can be supported and encouraged to be the best dads they can be. *

(*Moms are invited too!)

To Work or Not to Work, That is the Question:
Today’s generation of action-oriented, post-feminism mothers are in a constant state of questioning and comparing. It’s hard enough being a mother, much less a working-mother, or a formerly-working-mother, or a stay-at-home mother, or...
You get the point. When issues of motherhood and work collide, the dilemmas are complex, confusing, and deeply personal. In this Talk we focus on the identity issues, familial histories, financial concerns, and social pressures inherent in the work/motherhood dilemma, offering possible frameworks for resolution and joy in whatever your situation offers.

NEW PARENTHOOD: TRANSITION TO PARENTHOOD WORKSHOPS FOR COUPLES

As new parents fall in love with their baby and experience the pleasure of becoming a family, an entirely new pattern of living begins. These lifestyle changes can take a toll on a couple's rhythm of connection, conflict and intimacy, wearing down partners' satisfaction with their relationship.

Support, information, and preparation for this transition reverses that trend, helping couples continue to enjoy their connection, and bloom into their new role of parenting together.

The Transition to Parenthood Workshops for Couples helps couples develop the resiliency needed to meet the intense physical and emotional challenges of parenting. Each two-hour workshop provides couples with relationship strengthening strategies and information, as well as ways to develop into a great parenting team. The workshops also provide new and expectant parents opportunities to meet other couples going through this important and exciting life transition.

Participants are welcome to take all or any of the following two hour workshops:

Workshop I

Staying Connected

This workshop lays out the realities that hit when a family of two becomes a family of three. We talk about how to stay connected despite time constraints, constant interruptions, and sleep deprivation. Through discussion, DVD viewings, demonstration and experiential exercises, we will teach a roster of specific techniques that help couples keep the channels of communication, appreciation, and receptiveness flowing.


Workshop II

Managing Conflict
Preserving Intimacy and Romance

Conflict increases for most couples after a first baby arrives. At the same time there is less time, privacy, and energy to process and resolve conflict. There is also less time, privacy and energy for intimacy: snuggling, talking, sex.

In this workshop, we offer rituals for cultivating intimacy despite new time and energy demands. We address how conflict affects your child, and how to prevent the escalation of fights. We teach creative strategies for discovering new pathways through conflict to repair and reconnection.

Workshop III

Creating a Family Life Together
Finding Shared Meaning and Values
Honoring the Past: How You Were Parented; How You Hope to Parent:

People experience a profound philosophical shift when they become parents. Through guided dialogue, partners have the opportunity to express these changes in perspective, as well as their developing thoughts, dreams and hopes about creating a family life together. The idea of shared meaning and values is explored. We explore ways for couples to combine and channel these important visions into daily family life.

The way we were parented can also influence our own parenting ideas and approach. Guided exercises and discussion will move couples toward making conscious parenting choices that incorporate personal history, cultivating the good and leaving the bad behind.

Workshop IV

Becoming a Great Parenting Team
The Importance of Fathers

Parenting together requires communication and flexibility. Teamwork is crucial, but often partners have different parenting styles and ideas. This workshop offers an opportunity for parenting teams to work towards agreement, while incorporating diverse approaches and compromise.

Research shows clearly that paternal involvement is very important for a child’s emotional, social, and cognitive development. But the transition to fatherhood can be particularly complicated – dads often feel sidelined and unsupported.

We will discuss the wonderful benefits of involved fathers. We will explore what it has been like for workshop attendees to become fathers, and how they can be supported and encouraged.

These workshops incorporate the research of John Gottman, Ph.D., and material from the Bringing Baby Home Workshop he created with Julie Gottman, Ph.D. with Family Matters NY’s practical philosophy and approach to parent counseling.

The Gottmans’ research showed that expectant and new parents who took their BBH workshop were more satisfied with their relationship two years into parenting, compared with unprepared couples who frequently experienced a major dip in relationship satisfaction.

Because each segment has a different focus, it is possible for couples to sign up for one or more.
Interruptions for nursing and tending of babies and toddlers are expected and incorporated into the rhythm of the class. Dates, times and locations will be posted on this website.

THE ARTIST, FORMERLY KNOWN AS...
A workshop for creative artist/parents

Coping with parenthood is no easy feat, especially for the mother or father with artistic ambitions. Sometimes it seems impossible to combine good parenting with the intense focus required to keep creativity alive. This challenge leaves many creative artist/parents feeling confused, distracted, depleted and alone.
The Artist Formerly Known As...is an eight session workshop addressing some of the issues arising when an artist becomes a parent. Some of the weekly topics included will be:

- Time Management: How to carve out time for creativity, while recognizing that new limitations, both practical and psychological, exist now that you are a parent.

- Competition/Envy: The Creative Artist/Parent is particularly vulnerable to the downside of these emotions if unable to engage in his/her craft as readily as before the birth of his/her child. However, there is value to these "bad" emotions. The workshop will explore how to use feelings of competition and envy to motivate and engage the Creative Artist/Parent.

- Creative Block: What is behind a dip in creative motivation and/or inspiration? Is it really just a matter of no time and/or too much creative energy poured in to parenting? Sometimes a "vacation" from the demands of a creative life is the best thing for future artistic ventures, sometimes not. The segment will offer new solutions and perspectives on this tricky subject.

- Marriage: Many creative artists are married to other creative artists. Often one partner's creative life thrives through parenthood, while the other's suffers. The creative artist married to a non-artist may also watch his/her career fade while his/her spouse's career continues to develop. Obvious tensions arise in either scenario. The focus of this segment will be on rebalancing the marital scale through effective communication and partnership.

- Family of Origin: This segment will explore the impact of the Creative Artist/Parent's own upbringing on his/her feelings about parenthood, and creativity.

This workshop is led in two-hour segments by Alice Kaltman, L.C.S.W. Alice has an extensive background in treating creative artists. A professional dancer married to a visual artist, she brings her own personal experience to this workshop.
Dates, time, and location will be determined by consensus, once enrollment is set. Please call (212) 502-7979 for more information.