Parent-Child Workshops
Numerous community groups and organizations, schools, daycares, city municipalities or boroughs, and even neighbourhoods watch groups offer parent-child workshops. These can be tailor-made for a variety of groups. Consult the Organize a workshop section to learn about the steps involved for a successful group activity. A parent-child workshop can be scheduled during weekdays, late-afternoons, early evenings or on weekends.
Other services are also offered in daycares and schools. You can also do individual registrations through our Public Workshop Schedule.
OUR FOCUS
Parent-child workshops offer a fun and friendly atmosphere, where both kids & adults create and learn a common family language on safety. These activities aim to transmit the principals and skills of personal safety in order to prevent many situations of violence towards children. Through age-appropriate stories, games, and role-playing, the content is presented in an interesting and interactive way, which is aimed at educating children as much as their parents.
Parents really enjoy our approach because it provides them with the opportunity to learn just the right words in order to talk about safety issues, all the while giving them models to work from so they can later practice at home and help their child continue to integrate the skills learned. These type of workshops also often reinforce parents safety efforts because as kids themselves often say “Of course, the KIDPOWER lady (man) said so !”
Children love this formula because skills are presented in a fun, light-hearted and interactive fashion; the workshops are filled with a wide variety of hands-on skills they enjoy being able to practice with their parents.
CONTENT
Through individualized practices and group activities, we work towards developing the following social and safety skills:
When alone, HOW TO…
- Adopt a calm, confident and aware attitude
- Behave in a safe way when faced with an unknown situation or person
- Create safety zones when out and about in the world or faced with a problem person
- React effectively when lost or harassed
- Follow a safety plan
- Escape from threatening situations with strong voices and active bodies
When dealing with people they know, HOW TO…
- Protect themselves against bullies, hurtful words and name-calling
- Set boundaries effectively, in an appropriate and polite way, with peers as well as adults
- Say no to friends without losing them
- Deal with emotional coercion, intimidation, bribery or misuse of power by a peer or an adult
- Stop unsafe or inappropriate touch
- Get help from a busy adult and more…
TYPICAL WORKSHOPS
A ratio of at least one adult per child is recommended to allow every child the time to practice each skill in their family team. A short informational session for caring adults, followed by a parent question & answer period, is also planned at the end of the workshop. Meanwhile kids do supervised activities.
Below is a list of typcial parent-child workshop descriptions and durations, regularly included in our Public Workshop Schedule. Other combinations are available with different lengths, age categories and contents.
For Preschool Kids 4 to 5 Years Old
Typical length : 2h30 (2 x 1h + 15 min. for parents)
Maximum : 14 children / group – along with their parents and caring adults
With the support of our skilled instructors, parents, accompanied by their young children, learn and practice Everyday Safety Skills; these include situations with strangers, social skills with peers and boundary setting skills with grown-ups. Through games, stories, role-playing scenarios, and puppet theatre, parents and kids learn while having fun.
“I learned things I didn’t know. Thank you.
You have helped our family find the right words and ways to teach our children invaluable lifeskills. I feel I can easily implement what we practiced
in the workshop once we get home… And have fun while doing so!”
For Kids 6 to 8 Years Old
Typical length : 3h15 (2 x 1h30 + 15 min for parents)
Maximum : 20 children / group – along with their parents and caring adults
Children have fun learning and practicing Everyday Safety Skills with their parents through games, stories, role-plays and theatrical sketchs. Safety skills are taught about strangers, bullies, and people children know.
“I was afraid to talk to my children about the bad things that other people might do to them. I didn’t want to scare them or destroy their trust. Your workshop gave us a common language for working on what my kids need to know in a way which was empowering for all of us and, to my great surprise, it was fun!”
For Pre-Teens 9 to 12 Years Old
Typical length : 4h15 (2 x 2h + 15 min for parents)
Maximum : 20 children / group – along with their parents and caring adults
This special workshop for older kids and their parents allows them to learn Everyday Safety Skills in an up-beat and fun atmosphere. Kids and their parents get lots of hands-on practice on how to stay safe in a wide variety of situations, from being on their own to dealing with bullying, peer pressure, setting boundaries with people they know, and knowing how to protect themselves in a potentially dangerous situation.
“My son had been assaulted by bullies so badly that he had to go to the hospital.
After that, he often behaved as a victim would and this continuously made him
a target. Since taking your workshops, he has stopped 11 incidents with bullies
without ever having to resort to violence.”
Full Force Self-Defense Option
From ages 6 and up, parent-child workshops can be lengthened to include full-force physical self-defense skills and practices. We teach the Emergency Only Skills portion of our program through the help of team lead practices with a coach and head-to-toe padded instructor.
Kids usually adore this part of our program. However it is offered only as a sequel to the Everyday Safety Skills portion of our program, and requires parent approval because we believe physical self-defense should be used as a last resort. To include this segment of our program in your workshop, at least one additional hour must be added to the total duration of the workshop.
Family Weekend Workshops for 6 to 12 year olds
Maximum 16 children / group
Typical length: 11h (Parents & Caring Adults: 1 x 3h | Kids : 2 x 4h)
This comprehensive workshop is divided into three steps: one parent evening, two workshops for children, and one children’s presentation to parents.
During the parent evening, caring adults get the opportunity to learn more about our program, methodology and skills as well as its underlying principles, become better acquainted with ways to support their children’s learning at home. Since children are not present, they can also get answers to their adult questions and concerns and therefore unafraid to broach adult subject matter freely.
For kids, the weekend workshop experience provides an opportunity to practice honing a wide variety of safety skills from our Everyday Safety Skills and Full Force Self-Defense program portions. Under our staff’s supervision (4 people minimum), they can learn and practice everything safely, including a multitude of physical self-defense techniques with the help of our coach and padded instructors. All the safety guidelines, skills, sketches, role-playing scenarios, and games will be adapted to the ages and needs of each child present. (**this last yellow link should redirect to Full Force Self-defense option title above)
The workshop ends with the children presenting what they learned, including the physical self-defense techniques, to all the adults present.
“My eldest daughter participated in your Family Workshop. She now has confidence in herself like never before. She feels so much more skilled. Each time she needs to for her safety, she tells me how she successfully avoided problems at school or when alone. It’s thanks to your workshop that she does so well. She’s proud of herself & all the progress she’s made, and with good reason!
Educational conferences for parents are also available.
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