Building A Resilient Family - by Mark Bertin

COURSE

Building A Resilient Family

With Mark Bertin

Buzz words such as 'thriving', 'resilience', and 'mindful' fill headlines and sell books, but what do they really mean, and how do we cultivate these traits in our families? What does modern science say about mindfulness and child development, and how can we use this information to make our families feel less stressed, not more? This 10 day course will emphasize a realistic and practical approach to parenting, drawing from science and traditions of wisdom to guide us towards happier, healthier families. Let us truly let go of the extra and focus on what matters most.

LoveRelationshipsStressStress & AnxietyMindfulnessScienceScienceMindfulness MeditationParenting

Meet your Teacher

Mark Bertin
Pleasantville, NY

Dr. Mark Bertin is a developmental pediatrician, contributing author for the book Teaching Mindfulness Skills to Kids and Teens, and author of How Children Thrive, Mindful Parenting for ADHD and The Family ADHD Solution, that integrate mindfulness into evidence-based pediatric care. Dr. Bertin is on faculty at New York Medical College and the Windward Teacher Training Institute. He is also on the advisory boards for the non-profits Common Sense Media and Reach Out and Read. Mark is a regular contributor to Mindful Magazine, and blogs on Mindful.org and Psychology Today.

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10 Days

2.2k students

4.3 stars

13 min / day

Love

English

Lesson 1

Building Resilient Families

Our goal as parents is to raise resilient children- as the saying goes, providing our children a solid pair of hiking boots, instead of trying to pave the road every step of the way. At home, that starts with getting ourselves on solid ground. In today's session we will address how our children can benefit when we make the time for self-care. We can also work on our own awareness, responsiveness and wisdom through the practice of mindfulness. From this solid starting place, we more effectively make choices that lead towards a more resilient family life and structure.

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Lesson 2

Perfectly Imperfect Parenting

Raising a family is undoubtedly an uncertain and constantly changing situation. On Day 2 we will explore how we often get caught in perfectionism, fixing and doing all the time, and as a result, leading us to lose track of our own values and strengths. By settling and building awareness, we bring our best self to more situations more often, and better recognize when we’ve been involved in a moment that needs “repairing” afterwards. Through aiming to see life as it really is, and raising children with clarity and objectivity, we can let go of the extra pressures that unnecessarily complicate family life.

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Lesson 3

Cultivating Consistent Relationships

Resilience in children starts with something most of us value already – consistent relationships. But life can get busy and cuts into our quality time, while, our attention can be pulled away even when we are with our kids. In today's session, we will place emphasis on learning how we can use mindfulness to practice focused awareness with our children and on a different scale, bringing awareness to how we prioritize our family time throughout the years.

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Lesson 4

Developing A Sense Of Self-Efficacy

A second aspect of resilience for both kids and adults is a belief in our own self-efficacy, the ability to affect change in our lives. In today's session we will explore how this perspective requires an active push back against the ‘negativity bias,’ the tendency for difficult and challenging thoughts to feel mentally sticky and push aside awareness of what’s going well. We may also quite easily get caught up in attachment of how life ‘should’ or ‘shouldn’t’ be. Seeing our children exactly how they are right now, can allow us to seek the necessary opportunities to build resilience, through an emphasis on the value of recognizing their own strengths.

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Lesson 5

Supporting Self-Management Skills

In today's session we will be discussing another core aspect of resilience; a set of self- management skills called executive function, which act as our ‘brain manager’. This developmental path explains much of how children sustain healthy routines and learn in school, and how parents can implement effective behavioral plans. This is another opportunity to meet children exactly where they are developmentally, providing supports, building skills, and letting go of anything extra we’re adding to our lives.

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Lesson 6

Mindful Technology In The Modern World

In the modern world, it’s impossible to discuss family well-being and resilience without mentioning technology. Unlike past cultural changes, hundreds of studies document the impact of under-managed screen time. In today's discussion we will discuss how kids, by definition, lack mature self-management skills and require adult guidance to create a balanced, healthy relationship with their devices. The key focus of this lesson is therefore to build nonjudgmental awareness, meaning to note our habits and assumptions, before making skillful choices around this challenging part of modern family life.

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Lesson 7

Awareness Of Emotion

Motivation alone is not how we overcome challenges; we also need specific skills to navigate our lives. In today's lesson we will learn how to develop and harness Emotional Intelligence. Emotional intelligence starts with awareness; noting our emotions as they come and go, and also recognizing how our emotions affect us. Developing a nuanced emotional vocabulary, while also teaching children how to manage their behavior around their emotions, contributes to resilience through an increased capacity to manage our complex emotional lives.

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Lesson 8

Teaching Mindfulness To Children

Today's session focuses on the importance and vast benefits of teaching mindfulness to our children. In many ways, the aim of mindfulness in and of itself is to build resilience. With children, our own practice goes a long way towards teaching them mindfulness. But we can also look for opportunities to teach mindfulness, through activities we choose, and of course, introducing meditation practices to our children.

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Lesson 9

Nonjudgemental Awareness And Family

One foundational teaching of mindfulness is this: Don’t believe anything you hear, go out and prove to yourself that it works. Whatever we believe, however we were raised, this depth of mindfulness practice means settling, observing with clarity, and then making choices to live our lives as skillfully as we’re able. Today we unpack the sheer importance of recognizing typical child development, building from strengths, while also supporting children who fall behind, to ease our family towards long term wellbeing.

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Lesson 10

Returning And Letting Go

Letting go of perfectionism and recognizing we can’t predict and protect our children from everything is key to enabling us to reassure ourselves that what we are doing is not insufficient. This is a vital lesson that today, we will discuss, and use to understand how to consciously work to build a resilient family. The path to resilience in many ways represents the modern science of back to the basics parenting. Cultivating relationships, focusing on the value of effort and personal strengths of our children, and building self-management skills are all key to our own happiness, as well as our to our family unit. Family life is changing and imperfect, and that’s perfect – cover the basics, let go of the rest, and focus on exactly what you think is best for you and your family.

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Ask your teacher

This course includes 19 community questions and 9 audio replies from Mark Bertin. The community classroom and teacher audio replies are only available via the app.

19

4.3 (76)

Recent Reviews

yarrow

August 28, 2023

The information in this course is clear and simple, yet deep. Mark has such a great voice, and cadence, which makes it very pleasant to listen to these teachings.

quinn

February 2, 2023

Not what expected but really lovely

Ans

November 12, 2022

Really valuablle teaching, with a continuous thread of letting go that i found super helpful.

Sudarshan

May 3, 2021

Very informative and easy to apply 🙏🏻

Yahbah

March 25, 2021

A must for anyone with children, you will learn what you think you know about executive functions.

Karen

February 14, 2021

Excellent course! Great reset and clear road map for working with my teen. Well delivered. Many thanks!

Anthony

February 1, 2021

Excellent presentation, Doctor Bertin’s words were soothing and very helpful in these stressing times. Thank you and Dr. Bertin!

Kendall

January 12, 2021

TY for creating this course. It has been an invaluable resource for myself and my family to begin our new pandemic year with resilience, love, compassion & empathy together 🕉🙏☮️👨‍👩‍👦

Sara

December 1, 2020

Diana

June 7, 2020

Excellent. At a core level, making the parent’s meditation practice the backbone of this course and of a family’s resilience meshes very much with my own practical experience.

Cathy

April 28, 2020

There is some great content in this course, my husband and I listened together. However it didn’t feel very practical and it skipped around a little and was very brief on important points. I think we might need to listen again.

Nic

March 25, 2020

Love this thank you

TigerLily149381512125

February 9, 2020

Very informative and helpful! Thank you so much.

Anne

June 20, 2019

Highly useful for working with families, simply put in easy to understand language. Great tips and ‘how to’s’. Thank you for sharing this. My sincere gratitude 🙏

John-michael

February 6, 2019

solid. im taking parenting classes, and it directly interacts with what im learning. im not my daughters primary caregiver, so priorto visiting her and her mom

Lily

December 10, 2018

This was a lovely course, thank you! I especially found the brief guided mindfulness sessions at the beginning very helpful and almost would have enjoyed more of that! But overall a good reminder of what is important in family! Would be interested in more guided Family focused meditations by you!

Andy

December 4, 2018

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