Jan. 27, 2002 – A parent workshop to be led by bestselling author Michael Thompson on "How to Raise Responsible Children" will be held Tuesday evening at Good Hope School.
Thompson, a nationally recognized child and adolescent psychologist, is co-author of "Raising Cain: Protecting the Emotional Life of Boys" and "Finding the Heart of the Child."
His visit to St. Croix is being sponsored by the Caribbean Association of Independent Schools. As members of the association, Good Hope and Country Day School are coordinating his activities, which also will include a faculty workshop.
"Dr. Thompson shares a message that is both comforting and provocative in a talk that mixes anecdotes and clinical experience with research on the outcomes of different parenting styles," Sherry Trommer of Good Hope School said. "What he offers is a warm-hearted recipe for providing children with a foundation for moral behavior."
Trommer added, "Many parents have heard this talk and felt affirmed and challenged by it. Many teens have heard it and have had to admit that it probably is, well, right."
Jim Cantwell, interim head of school at Good Hope, said Thompson's words of wisdom are "an absolute must for building renewed confidence in educators and parents." Cantwell, a parent who raised four teen-agers, knows whereof he speaks, having attended several of Thompson's presentations himself.
The 1999 book "Raising Cain" examines how today's culture socializes and miseducates boys to disregard their emotional lives. Thompson and co-author Dan Kindlon explore the struggle of young boys who face the expectations of a curriculum emphasizing the type of learning skills that normally develop more slowly in boys than in girls. They also look at the trend toward medicating boys for attention deficits and what they see as the tendency for society to distort the qualities of physical energy, boldness, curiosity and action orientation into a punishing, dangerous definition of masculinity.
"Finding the Heart of the Child," co-authored by Edward M. Hallowell, is a collection of essays on child development and the role of schools, families and friends that was published in 1993 by the National Association of Independent Schools.
The parent workshop will run from 7:30 to 9 p.m. It's open to the public and free. For more information, call Trommer at Good Hope at 772-0022.
