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MAKING SENSE of KIDS
- 17 Jun 2025 (9:00 am) to 20 Jun 2025 (4:00 pm)
- The Glen Hotel, 24 Gaskell St, Eight Mile Plains, QLD, 4113
- Only 18 tickets left!
| Trainer | Dr Deborah MacNamara (CAD) |
|---|---|
| CPD Hrs | 28 |
| Includes | Catering, handbook and certificate |
Neufeld Institute Level 1 Intensive
This flagship course provides a grounding in the conceptual foundations of Neufeld's formulation of the attachment-based developmental approach. The three conceptual keys to making sense of children are addressed: attachment, vulnerability and maturation. Dr. Deborah MacNamara weaves these factors together into a three-dimensional map that can be used to locate children and teens developmentally as well as discover how to get them moving in the right direction. This course is designed for all those involved in raising, teaching and working with children and teens, and provides insight into working with stuck adults too.
The Neufeld Intensive Level 1 equips participants to use the constructs of attachment, maturation and vulnerability to view their kids and their problems three-dimensionally. Using this insight, we will move to opening doors for deep-rooted change. Participants will learn to recognize the signs of stuckness, determine the causes of this condition, and get children unstuck. Course participants are also equipped to use a working model of attachment that can be applied to children of all ages and levels of challenge, to assess for the appropriate depth and development of attachment, and to employ strategies for cultivating a context of connection with the immature. Although the course is focused on children and youth, the material applies to all ages and is applicable across all settings. This course consistently receives outstanding accolades from registrants and many return to reflect on the rich content.
The main objective is to make sense of the children in our care. Intervention must be based on insight if it is to transform children from inside out and be long lasting in its effects. The aim is do to more than simply modify behaviour but rather to unlock the processes of inner change. By removing the impediments to the innate maturational processes, we can lift the ceiling on functioning and move closer to realising the child`s developmental potential, whatever that may be. Some problems cannot be fixed but the stuckness surrounding the problem can still be addressed. The goal of this course is to equip the participants with the conceptual tools to make sense of kids and to provide the instruments of intervention that will bring lasting change.
The quality of our relationship with our children determines the quality of our influence on them.
Topics covered
- the role of attachment in personality and behaviour
- the developmental paralysis that underlies a multitude of symptoms and problems in both children and adults
- the condition of being defended against vulnerability and the impact on functioning and behaviour
- stuckness as the most common problem of childhood
- a three-pronged approach to effect deep and lasting change
- the foundations of an attachment approach
- the problem with using consequences and sanctions with stuck kids
- the role of emotion in personality and behaviour
- ways to soften defenses against vulnerability
- three core interventions that prime the maturing processes
- how to grow into effectiveness as a practitioner
- developmentally friendly strategies for dealing with problems that result from stuckness
- the problems with, and alternatives to, separation-based discipline
Four Day Course Outline
|
1 |
Distinctives of this Approach |
The course begins with an overview of the main tenets, assumptions and distinctives of the attachment-based developmental approach that Dr. Neufeld has articulated. The three conceptual keys to making sense of children are introduced. |
| 2 | The Maturation Factor | Three maturing processes are responsible for moving our children to grow up. These growth processes are identified, together with the theories and theorists associated with each. The construct of stuckness is introduced as the most likely explanation for many learning and behaviour problems. The developmental approach is differentiated from the behavioural or learning approach. |
| 3 | The Emergent Process | If conditions are conducive, a child is moved to become increasingly more viable as a separate being. The emergent process is responsible for a host of wonderful characteristics including curiousity, independence, responsibility, a sense of agency, emergent play and much more. Reviewed are the main impediments to the emergent process, including our typical responses when children are missing the fruit of emergence. |
| 4 | The Adaptive Process | If all was unfolding as it should, children would become transformed when up against that which they cannot change. The fruit of adaptation includes resilience, recovery, resourcefulness and much more. The key to this basic growth process is uncovered and discussed, as well as what gets in the way. |
| 5 | Adaptation, Aggression and Discipline |
Aggression happens when adaptation doesn’t. This insight to aggression fundamentally changes our response. Because conventional discipline assumes the ability to change when futility is encountered, it is rendered ineffective and even counterproductive when used with nonadaptive children. Alternative methods of discipline are proposed. |
| 6 | The Integrative Process | What moves a child to become civilized and considerate is the capacity to experience conflicting thoughts and feelings. This could be called Nature’s finishing school of maturation. The role of the prefrontal cortex and its development is reviewed. |
| 7 | The Tempering Effect | In this session, we take a closer look at how the integrative process leads to a mature temperament, including the capacity for courage, patience, work, morality, balance and much more. Also discussed is the role of the integrative process in closing the door to impulsive behaviour, including aggression. |
| 8 | The Vulnerability Factor |
Every human brain is equipped to defend against a vulnerability too much to bear. The three basic mechanisms of defense are outlined. Also discussed are the factors that lead some children to be more vulnerable than others. The impact of defendedness on learning and behaviour is reviewed. |
| 9 | Vulnerability and Maturation | Emotion is the engine of maturation, but for the engine to work, a child must be capable of feeling his or her tender emotions. The problem with feeling is its vulnerability and therefore what is most likely to be defended against. The implications are reviewed and discussed. |
| 10 | The Attachment Factor | The most powerful factor in maturation is introduced, along with the key theorists and constructs that form the puzzle pieces of attachment theory. Nothing impacts a child more than facing separation. The separation complex is introduced as being at the core of most common childhood problems. |
| 11 | How Children are Meant to Attach | Dr. Neufeld introduces his signature six-stage model of how the capacity for relationship develops. Participants learn to recognize how children are primarily attaching. Also discussed is the impact of a child’s flight from vulnerability on attachment. |
| 12 | How Attachment Empowers |
The context for raising children is their attachments to the adults responsible for them. This insight would change the practice of parenting and education in today’s society. Attachment is the most powerful force in the universe but needs to be harnessed to do its work. The construct of counterwill is introduced, along with its implications for parenting and teaching. |
| 13 | The Alpha Dynamic |
Attachment is not only hierarchical in nature but needs to be so in order to serve its purpose. An understanding of alpha instincts as well as the alpha complex is absolutely essential to making sense of children and to cultivating right relationship. The alpha complex has many manifestations and is at the core of some significant childhood problems, including the demanding child, the competitive child, and the bully. |
| 14 | Shyness and Detachment |
We cannot truly make sense of children without an understanding of the polarization of attachment. Shyness is introduced as an attachment instinct meant to protect existing attachments. Defensive detachment is introduced as a powerful attachment defense that can be at the core of a number of troubling symptoms and syndromes. |
| 15 | Attachment and Maturation |
A child’s primary attachments create the womb in which maturation is gestated. Rest and satiation are the keys to the fruitfulness of attachment. How to provide these conditions is the topic of this session. |
| 16 | Collecting our Children | Introduced is a three-pronged approach for working with stuck kids. Since stuck kids require a context of attachment within which to work, cultivating a working relationship should be our number one priority. We must begin by engaging a child’s attachment instincts. How to do this is the subject of this session. |
| 17 | Bridging and Matchmaking |
Children won’t hold on to us unless we hold on to them. Maintaining a healthy working relationship involves bridging anything that could divide. Stuck kids aren’t usually receptive to forming relationships cold. Using existing attachments to beget the attachments a child needs, is key to matchmaking. |
| 18 | Compensating for Stuckness | Battling against the symptoms of stuckness is futile. Before we can get children unstuck, we must find a work around for the developmental deficits and behavioural symptoms that exist. Six ways of doing this are presented and discussed. |
| 19 | Softening the Defenses | When children get their tender feelings back, attachments deepen and maturation unfolds rather spontaneously. Reversing defendedness should therefore be our ultimate yearning. This session focuses on natural ways to help make this happen. |
| 20 | Priming the Maturing Processes | The course concludes with three powerful catalysts for growth that can also double as effective substitutes for conventional discipline. These instruments of maturation are relatively easy to use and can bring deep and lasting results. |
Presented by: Dr Deborah MacNamara (Canada). A dynamic speaker and bestselling author, Dr. Deborah MacNamara is sought after for her expertise on topics such as childhood development, adolescence, parenting, and educating kids. Dr. MacNamara is the author of the bestselling book, Rest, Play, Grow: Making Sense of Preschoolers (or anyone who acts like one), a children’s picture book, The Sorry Plane, and Nourished: Connection, Food, and Caring for our Kids (and everyone else we love), which won a gold Nautilus award for best parenting book in 2024.
As a clinical counsellor, educator, and researcher with more than 25 years’ experience working with families and teachers, she translates the science of human development into stories that transferrable to the home to classroom. She is on faculty at the Neufeld Institute where she works with Gordon Neufeld to make sense of kids to the adults who are responsible for them. Deborah resides in Vancouver, Canada with her husband and two children.
Audience: This training is suitable for all professionals who support, teach and treat children, young people and their families/carers who experience relational and attachment difficulties.
Mental Health Professionals: All mental health professionals including, but not limited to Psychiatrists, Psychologists, Play Therapists, Occupational Therapists, Nurses, Social Workers, Child Protection and Disability Workers, Guidance Officers, Residential Care Workers and Foster Support Workers, and all other mental health professionals looking.
Education Professionals: All education professionals who work with children or youth including, but not limited to K–12 Classroom Teachers, School Counsellors, Learning Assistance/Resource Teachers, School Administrators, School Paraprofessionals including Special Education Assistants, Classroom Assistants and Early Childhood Workers and all other professionals who support behavioural challenges and complex learning needs.
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