Tools for Growing a Growth Mindset and Emotional Intelligence

This class brings tools into your kid's social and emotional intelligence tool kit where we'll focus on self-awareness and the ability to navigate disappointment, hurt and anger, accepting responsibility for one's actions and words and finding one's resilience and grit. We'll also focus on ways to improve their interpersonal communication within their self and with others, shifting inner perspectives, building self-esteem and self-confidence as well as gratitude. We'll learn how to create a calm mind in the face of our worries and build a growth mindset with practical day-to-day lifestyle choices that also include creating habits and SMART goals that stick. Additionally, we'll add tools on how to calm their nerves when needing to speak in front of others and how to increase their organizational skills in school and at home. 

During this developmental period, friend-groups become of greater importance and navigating the feelings of new social pressures may create a desire to put on a mask and hid their real selves from their peers. The goal of this class is for kids to find their voice, embrace their true selves, know that they have a purpose in life and find their self-confidence to transcend peer pressure and walk their path with resilience and grit. 

As an ongoing class, students can join any week and there is no need to catch up on the previous lesson. To facilitate learning and student interaction, we will cover evidence-based information about that topic as well as some of the neuroscience behind it.  Then we'll discuss strategies by utilizing lots of real-life examples to help make the material more concretely understood. Slides and polls will also be used in this class for discussion and content introduction. Student participation and engagement are highly encouraged. 

Each class is divided into two parts:
(1) a discussion part where students will learn content and strategies regarding the day's topic. 
(2) a practice part where students will get the opportunity to practice strategies via prompts for conversational exchanges between teacher and students.

Each week we will cover a different topic and there are eight different classes for this course. 
Class topics are described below:

NEW DATES TO BE ANNOUNCED SOON!  
I AM OPEN TO SUGGESTED DAYS AND TIMES.  :)

Week of July 28th
Topic #1 - Resilience and Grit: 
Learners will gain an understanding of the steps to successfully navigate changing and challenging environments and overcome mistakes and failures. 

Week of Aug 4th
Topic #2 - Disappointment and Expectations: 
When life gives you lemons, make lemonade. Learners will gain an understanding on the importance of adjusting the framework of expectations and will learn strategies and tools to help acquire wisdom when disappointments occur and when expectations do not match reality.

Week of  Aug 11th
Topic #3 - Anger: 
Students will learn how to recognize their triggers, how to navigate healthy outlets and choices for their anger and healthy communications and conflict resolution skills. 

Week of 
Topic #4 -  Accepting Responsibility: 
Accepting responsibility for one's actions and words can be hard, but with the right tools and guideposts, students can shift judgment and criticism away from self and others and develop a higher sense of purpose and find empowerment through lifting each other up.

Week of Aug 18th
Topic #5 - Gratitude: 
Students will learn steps on how to foster a sense of gratitude and a sense of purpose. We will explore how gratitude and happiness are connected. Students will explore how they want to engage in what the world has to offer and how they want to make their own contributions. 

Week of Aug 25th
Topic #6 - Non-Verbal Interpersonal Communication Skills: 
Non-verbal communication tells us a lot about a person's personality and what their inner thoughts are. Nonverbal components contribute to over 90% of communication - Words 7%, Body Language 55%, Tone of Voice 38%. Non-verbal communication helps the appropriate delivery of feelings and attitudes. However, when there is a misinterpretation or a deception of non-verbal cues, chances increase that there will be a misunderstanding or that a lie is involved. Learning to understand non-verbal communication can help in many social situations. 

Week of Sept 1st
Topic #7 - Verbal Interpersonal Communication Skills: 
Compassionate and assertive verbal communication helps us express our views and achieve goals and do so without hurting or alienating others. It’s the key to developing mutual respect for each other. Compassionate and assertive communication is conveying your message in a direct but accepting and respectful way. 

Week of Sept 8th
Topic #8 - Self-Esteem and Self-Actualization:
We unconsciously take cues of what’s desirable by watching celebrities, famous people and influencers. We look to the media and our social circles for clues of how we’re supposed to be. This comparing of others can lull us into forgetting what our own true potential is. This class looks at moving self-esteem from negative self-talk and negative perceptions to positive and rewarding perceptions of the self and others, moving us closer to understanding our own potential of self-actualization.

Week of Sept 15th
Topic #9 - Self Confidence:
We gain a sense of self-confidence when we see ourselves improving our skills, achieving goals and reflecting on the positive. This encourages us to believe that, if we learn and work hard in a particular area, we'll succeed. It's this type of confidence that leads people to accept difficult challenges and to keep going in the face of setbacks. Confidence comes not from always being right but from not fearing mistakes.

Week of Sept 22nd
Topic #10 - Finding One's Purpose: 
Students will be guided to engage in their own inner-dialogue to deepen their understanding of what brings them to life. What talents and passions do they want to bring into the world? What values do they most want to uphold in their life? What are the *cognitive principles* behind those talents, passions and values that eventually translate into right livelihood? 

Week of Sept 29th
Topic #11 - Finding Balance by Creating Successful Habits:
We will reflect on balance in our own lives and what motivates us to get unstuck from a rut. Gain an understanding in the psychology of why some habits persist and others may be fleeting. Learn how to make healthy habits and SMART goals stick.

Week of Oct 6th
Topic #12 - Calm Stress by Calming Your Amygdala:
We'll will learn some interesting brain science about the brain’s amygdala, the neocortex, the prefrontal cortex and a process called neuroplasticity. We'll learn how the brain responds to stress, anxiety and involuntary fear responses and how the brain can unlearn stress and fear responses and choose calmness. 

Week of Oct 13th
Topic #13- Brain Boosting Your Happiness Factor:
Learn how to boost your happiness brain chemicals with a brief tour of the limbic system, neuroplasticity and psychology. Learn how you can create practical day-to-day choices that will boost your happiness factor.

Week of Oct 20th
Topic #14 - Public Speaking - Calming the Nerves:
We will discuss strategies for organization and time management, writing and speaking skills, and persevering through your first public speaking event. Life-long skills are built on learning the art of speaking in front of others. 

Week of Oct 27th
Topic #15 - Organizing Your School Life: 
We'll look at organizing your current academic life. Studies have shown that the prefrontal cortex, the executive functioning part of our brain, responds best to certain cues and we'll learn how to create a flow that supports your academics, your learning style as well as your calmness. We'll focus in on how to best take notes and how to study for and take tests.

Week of Nov 3rd
Topic #16 - Organizing Your Home Life:
We'll look at your home environment and how to tame the chaos and find peace and tranquility in each part of your day. We'll discuss how to create sticky habits that can create routines that save the day, fun ways to declutter and develop a step-by-step manageable plan of action to create a room that cleans itself. 


***This ongoing class welcomes students of all social skills levels! Students are welcome to attend as many classes as they wish. Some students will complete the sequence of sixteen classes, while others stay enrolled for longer, benefiting from seeing the topics more than once. 

I truly love teaching these secular and non-therapeutic classes that are both educational and immersive about emotional intelligence and brain science while finding relaxation, calmness and personal awareness and growth. Teaching for the left and right brain is my superpower!

I hope to see your learner soon!