Teens and their Screens

Teens are drawn to their screens like moths to a flame. They demand ever more screen time telling us it makes them happy but their behaviours are telling us otherwise.

Teens - more than ever before - now struggle with anxiety, depression and self-harm, and recent research shows there is a direct link between the time teens spend on their screens and plunging adolescent mental health. However when used wisely screens can support connection, togetherness and play.

To learn how help your teen side-step risky screen use and online dangers, hear Adrienne Wood speak on the importance of helping rangatahi manage their digital world.

Relevant for parents of tweens and teens 10 – 18 years old

Cost: $25

Using Play to Address Troubling Behaviours

When parenting kids through tricky times there is so much scope for things to go wrong. Some become clingy while others push back and resist connection. Some seek an alpha stance while others erupt in frustration.

Play provides a surprisingly simple yet effective answer to off of these problems. Play can melt defences, release feelings, invite connection, and tend to the emotional needs of kids that sit underneath the behaviour.

This training provides professionals, caregivers and parents insight into four key dynamics that emerge when working with children:

- Anxiety
- Counterwill
- an Alpha Stance
- Aggression

Adrienne will help you make sense of these troubling behaviours using play and attachment alongside insight and wisdom from the Neufeld Institute.

Cost: $200

Anxious Kids

Anxiety has skyrocketed among our children and teens in recent years. Parenting a perpetually anxious child can be both confusing, challenging and exhausting. As parents we sometimes feel helpless to change the situation without realising we have the power to turn this around. We underestimate as a society the power of PLAY to interrupt this troubling dynamic.

On this course Adrienne will unpack the roots of anxiety using Neufeld Institute wisdom and insight, and invite us into a new and refreshing playfulness with both our kids and teens.

Cost: $75

Resistant Kids

Counterwill is that oppositional drive in kids to counter and push back against every suggestion or request we make. We think of oppositionality and defiance as troublesome behaviours but is there such a thing as healthy Counterwill?

Using Neufeld Institute insight and wisdom Adrienne will help us find playful ways to break up unhealthy Counterwill and oppositionality in kids and help us to make sense of the healthy counterwill that lies in us all.

Cost: $75

Alpha Kids

When kids get themselves in the lead they can become bossy, demanding, competitive and even bullying in their behaviour. As a result, we can get caught on the back foot trying to coax, cajole and demand in order to get them to do what they need to do. The thing is, kids who get stuck in the alpha mode are often there because it feels safer to them than taking the lead from us.

Adrienne will help you understand the alpha dynamic better making sense of its healthy as well as its unhealthy expression. Using Neufeld Institute wisdom and insight this course will give you ideas to help get kids get unstuck from their drive to be in the lead using playfulness and connection.

Cost: $75

Frustrated kids

Aggression can be enormously confronting when managing children and youth. As parents and providers we often rush to shut it down as quickly as we can. However emotions must flow for children to grow. Could there be a place for releasing frustration safely – or even playfully – before it erupts in attack?

Adrienne will lead you through ideas and activities to release frustration safely - and even playfully - using Neufeld Institute insight and wisdom.

Cost: $75