Parents in the Sunnyvale School District were invited to a parent workshop on building developmental assets on January 30, 2012. The speaker, Clay Roberts, presented to district staff and teachers earlier that day as part of Staff Development Day training.
Mr. Roberts shared a list of forty developmental assets, building blocks identified by the Search Institute as key factors that help children grow up to be healthy, caring, and responsible individuals. About forty parents attended the evening workshop, held at Bishop Elementary School. Mr. Roberts explained how parents can help build these assets for their children. The hands-on workshop offered parents opportunities to practice strategies for helping their children resist peer pressure, explicitly show children how to say no to negative peer influence, an important skill for children to have as they learn to make right choices. These skills help enhance children’s social-emotional well-being, which supports greater academic success. Participants of the workshop left with concrete examples of how to teach their children effective ways to resist peer pressure and the confidence they can help their children at home.
The Search Institute, based in Minneapolis, MN, is an independent, non-profit, non-sectarian, organization whose mission is to help create healthy communities for everyone. The Search Institute has been sharing its wealth of knowledge, resources, research results to help educate and motivate caring adults to create and support communities around the world where young people thrive. More information is available at www.search-institute.org.
Article by Nina Wong-Dobkin
