Best selling author Mary Sheedy Kurcinka, who wrote Raising Your Spirited Child, will be giving a lecture in Castlegar on Sept. 22 at the Sandman Inn.
The lecture, which goes from 9 a.m. until 3 p.m., will cover several topics on dealing with challenging children.
“We’ll be working on dealing with behaviour issues,” said Kurcinka. “I’ll be helping parents to understand what’s happening with their children. What they’re feeling and what the child’s needs are that are causing them to behave that way. I’ll be teaching strategies to make it better.”
Kurcinka, who is from Minnesota, is an internationally recognized lecturer and parent educator.
“For the first 17 years of my career I worked with school districts in Minnesota providing parent education from birth to kindergarten,” she said. “I started in Early Childhood Education (ECE), but then broadened my work to go from birth right to 18.”
In addition to Raising Your Spirited Child, Kurcinka has also written Kids, Parents, and Power Struggles; and Sleepless in America: Is Your Child Misbehaving or Missing Sleep?
The strategies Kurcinka uses are about building strong relations which apply even in adult relations.
“How do we manage strong emotion?” she asked. “How do we teach problem solving?”
She says because people are wired different – some are introverted, some are extroverted – we need to work with them in different ways.
“There’s a genetic factor there,” said Kurcinka. “Some people are more introverted. They need space. They need time to think about it before talking. Extroverts need interaction and activity. They need to talk about it right away. Understanding those differences help us work together.”
In addition to being an author and lecturer, Kucinka has her own private practice where she works with parents and professionals.
“It’s about understanding what triggers challenging behaviour and finding strategies to make it better,” she said. “I use real-life practical strategies that work. I follow up with families and find out what’s working and what’s not.
