Chris Thurber's guest appearances

Chris Thurber

Sunshine Parenting

Campfire Conversation

Teaching What It Takes ®

Inspiring Leadership

Living and Leading with Emotional Intelligence

Obsessed With the Weather

Great Dad Talks

Where Parents Talk

Study Time

Devorah Heitner

Jessica Lahey

Julie Lythcott-Haims

Lisa Damour

Michele Borba

Michael Reichert

Laurie Browne

Roger Mooking

Cynthia Sweeney

Lisa Raitt

Irvin Studin

Barbara Coloroso

Scott Morrison

Julie Morgenstern

Sara Westbrook

OwlTail

In this interview I talk to Chris Thurber about the good kinds of parental pressure. Thurber, along with his co-author Hendrie Weissinger, believe that there is a right way and a wrong way to ask for the best from our goods. Their philosophy is perhaps summed up by one of their lessons in the book: "Expect their  best, not the best." Chris Thurber is a board-certified clinical psychologist, educator, author, and father with a BA from Harvard and a PhD in child and adolescent psychology from UCLA.  He serves as a clinician and instructor at Phillips Exeter Academy.Many experts agree that parental pressure contributes to anxiety, depression, and even addiction among children. But according to psychologists Chris Thurber, PhD and Hendrie Weisinger, PhD, pressure itself isn’t bad – the issue is how pressure is applied. Their new book, THE UNLIKELY ART OF PARENTAL PRESSURE: A Positive Approach To Pushing Your Child To Be Their Best Self (Hachette Books; July 2021), is the first to provide in-depth solutions for creating healthy pressure, offering step-by-step advice that parents and care-givers can begin to use immediately with profound long-term results. “Parents apply pressure because they care, but they hinder progress and create problems because of how they apply it,” Thurber and Weisinger write. “Our goal is to give parents a healthy road map and practical tools to ensure that the instinctive pressure they apply to their children promotes development, not distress.” The authors have identified eight ways to transform harmful pressure into healthy pressure. In THE UNLIKELY ART OF PARENTAL PRESSURE, they provide multiple, true-to-life sample conversations to show exactly how to adopt these behaviors, which, in turn, will nurture internal motivation, improve parent-child interactions, build deep connections, sidestep cultural pitfalls, and, ultimately, help children do well. “With a modest adjustment today, you can be an even more effective parent tomorrow."The eight transformations are: Expect Their Best, Not The Best – How parents state their expectations to their child has an enormous effect on the youngster’s motivation. Unfortunately, when expectations emphasize highly specific achievement or perfection, kids may develop low self-esteem and become pessimistic about achieving goals. Tame Your Core Expectation – When parental expectations are unrealistic, they can induce harmful thoughts, feelings, and behaviors in their children. Parents can avoid expressing unhealthy expectations by emphasizing consistent effort instead of specific outcomes. The authors point out that a parent’s definition of success will always differ from their child’s, and they discuss the insidious and constant expectations established by social media. Increase Your Warmth – “The difference between warm and cold parenting is not in the emotions that we feel but in the affect we display—how we express our feelings,” the authors write. They explain what parenting with warmth looks like, and how it will change a child’s experience of parental pressure. Turn Up the Heat – Building on the importance of warmth, Thurber and Weisinger provide a variety of strategies that will enhance one’s ability to parent with warmth. Many of these hinge on demonstrating empathy, and the authors describe how empathy will enable parents to better convey the lessons they wish to teach.Earn Respect, Not Rebellion – To earn respect, not rebellion, parents need to engage their children in more conversations about thoughts and feelings and not let conversations about expectations and outcomes dominate their interactions. The authors provide examples showing how this works as well as a chart that illustrates the differences between harmful and healthy communications. Praise, Criticize, and Question Effectively – The authors offer a multitude of tools – including the Six S’s of effective praise: Soon, Spontaneous, Sincere, Specific, Striving, and Stand-Alone. They also address effective criticism and questions, including discussions of rewards and consequences. Be the Believer – As children age, they demand increasing amounts of independence. The authors offer detailed guidelines for determining the optimum level of parental involvement in a variety of circumstances. Open Your Mind and Your Heart – Parents are not the only source of pressure on today’s youth. Their book also addresses sociocultural sources of pressure, and how parents can contribute to local, national, and global movements that support children’s healthy development. Hendrie Weisinger, PhD, co-author of THE UNLIKELY ART OF PARENTAL PRESSURE, is a world-renowned psychologist and pioneer in the field of pressure management, as well as the author of a number of bestselling books. He has consulted with and developed programs for dozens of Fortune 500 companies and government agencies.

In this interview I talk to Chris Thurber about the good kinds of parental pressure. Thurber, along with his co-author Hendrie Weissinger, believe that there is a right way and a wrong way to ask for the best from our goods. Their philosophy is perhaps summed up by one of their lessons in the book: "Expect their best, not the best." Chris Thurber is a board-certified clinical psychologist, educator, author, and father with a BA from Harvard and a PhD in child and adolescent psychology from UCLA. He serves as a clinician and instructor at Phillips Exeter Academy. Many experts agree that parental pressure contributes to anxiety, depression, and even addiction among children. But according to psychologists Chris Thurber, PhD and Hendrie Weisinger, PhD, pressure itself isn’t bad – the issue is how pressure is applied. Their new book, THE UNLIKELY ART OF PARENTAL PRESSURE: A Positive Approach To Pushing Your Child To Be Their Best Self (Hachette Books; July 2021), is the first to provide in-depth solutions for creating healthy pressure, offering step-by-step advice that parents and care-givers can begin to use immediately with profound long-term results. “Parents apply pressure because they care, but they hinder progress and create problems because of how they apply it,” Thurber and Weisinger write. “Our goal is to give parents a healthy road map and practical tools to ensure that the instinctive pressure they apply to their children promotes development, not distress.” The authors have identified eight ways to transform harmful pressure into healthy pressure. In THE UNLIKELY ART OF PARENTAL PRESSURE, they provide multiple, true-to-life sample conversations to show exactly how to adopt these behaviors, which, in turn, will nurture internal motivation, improve parent-child interactions, build deep connections, sidestep cultural pitfalls, and, ultimately, help children do well. “With a modest adjustment today, you can be an even more effective parent tomorrow." The eight transformations are: Expect Their Best, Not The Best – How parents state their expectations to their child has an enormous effect on the youngster’s motivation. Unfortunately, when expectations emphasize highly specific achievement or perfection, kids may develop low self-esteem and become pessimistic about achieving goals. Tame Your Core Expectation – When parental expectations are unrealistic, they can induce harmful thoughts, feelings, and behaviors in their children. Parents can avoid expressing unhealthy expectations by emphasizing consistent effort instead of specific outcomes. The authors point out that a parent’s definition of success will always differ from their child’s, and they discuss the insidious and constant expectations established by social media. Increase Your Warmth – “The difference between warm and cold parenting is not in the emotions that we feel but in the affect we display—how we express our feelings,” the authors write. They explain what parenting with warmth looks like, and how it will change a child’s experience of parental pressure. Turn Up the Heat – Building on the importance of warmth, Thurber and Weisinger provide a variety of strategies that will enhance one’s ability to parent with warmth. Many of these hinge on demonstrating empathy, and the authors describe how empathy will enable parents to better convey the lessons they wish to teach. Earn Respect, Not Rebellion – To earn respect, not rebellion, parents need to engage their children in more conversations about thoughts and feelings and not let conversations about expectations and outcomes dominate their interactions. The authors provide examples showing how this works as well as a chart that illustrates the differences between harmful and healthy communications. Praise, Criticize, and Question Effectively – The authors offer a multitude of tools – including the Six S’s of effective praise: Soon, Spontaneous, Sincere, Specific, Striving, and Stand-Alone. They also address effective criticism and questions, including discussions of rewards and consequences. Be the Believer – As children age, they demand increasing amounts of independence. The authors offer detailed guidelines for determining the optimum level of parental involvement in a variety of circumstances. Open Your Mind and Your Heart – Parents are not the only source of pressure on today’s youth. Their book also addresses sociocultural sources of pressure, and how parents can contribute to local, national, and global movements that support children’s healthy development. Hendrie Weisinger, PhD, co-author of THE UNLIKELY ART OF PARENTAL PRESSURE, is a world-renowned psychologist and pioneer in the field of pressure management, as well as the author of a number of bestselling books. He has consulted with and developed programs for dozens of Fortune 500 companies and government agencies.

Chris Thurber on how use positive pressure with your teens

Lianne Castelino of Where Parents Talk speaks to Dr. Chris Thurber, psychologist, father of 2 and author about how parents can support their kids to manage change and life transitions.

Strategies to Help Kids Adapt to Change and Manage Transitions with Dr. Chris Thurber

Melinda Wenner Moyer

In this week's edition of Where Parents Talk with Lianne Castelino on 105.9 The Region, discussion topics include: managing a child through transitions and changes, and how to raise kids who are not jerks --- the subject of a new book.

Dr. Chris Thurber: Managing Changes and Transitions| Melinda Wenner Moyer: 'How To Raise Kids Who Aren't Assholes' (new book)

This week's guests are Dr. Chris Thurber and Melinda Wenner Moyer.

Dr. Chris Thurber / Melinda Wenner Moyer

Join Steve for this awesome interview with Aquatics expert and School Psychologist Dr. Chris Thurber.  Chris is a true authority when it comes to water safety (and lots of other things for that matter!) and he gives some incredible insight into how the weather impacts all aquatic activities.  His safety advice as well as insight into parenting around the water is not to be missed.  Enjoy! 

Join Steve for this awesome interview with Aquatics expert and School Psychologist Dr. Chris Thurber.  Chris is a true authority when it comes to water safety (and lots of other things for that matter!) and he gives some incredible insight into how the weather impacts all aquatic activities.  His safety advice as well as insight into parenting around the water is not to be missed.  Enjoy!

50: Aquatics Expert and School Psychologist Dr. Chris Thurber

Episode 84: Living and Leading with Emotional Intelligence: The Unlikely Art of Parental Pressure With Dr. Chris Thurber.In this episode, you hear from psychologist, educator, author, and parent, Dr. Chris Thurber. as we discuss his upcoming book, The Unlikely Art of Parental Pressure: A Positive Approach to Pushing Your Child to Be Their Best Self. Dr. Thurber is a thought leader in positive youth development. He has dedicated his professional life to improving how caring adults teach and lead young people and to enhancing the experience of adventurous young people who are spending time away from home. A graduate of Harvard University and UCLA, Chris has served as a psychologist and instructor at Phillips Exeter Academy since 1999.An entrepreneur from a young age, Dr. Thurber founded Prep4Camp and Prep4School to teach young people how to prevent intense homesickness and make joyful, successful transitions to boarding school and summer camp. One of Chris’s first Prep4 videos won a Telly Award (Bronze) for best Non-Broadcast Instructional Video.Camps and schools on five continents have invited Dr. Thurber to deliver keynotes, contribute articles, and lead workshops for faculty, families, staff, and students. His award-winning preparatory book for new camper families, The Summer Camp Handbook, was recently translated into Mandarin to help launch the youth camp movement in China. His latest book is The Unlikely Art of Parental Pressure: A Positive Approach to Pushing Your Child to Be Their Best Self.Chris’s writing has won several awards, including a National Parenting Press Gold Award and a Golden Quill Award. He has appeared on the Today Show, CBS This Morning, Martha Stewart, CNN, Fox, Canada AM, Beijing 57, and NPR. His research and musings on youth development and parenting have been featured in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, The Boston Globe, and numerous magazines, such as Parents, Parenting, Men’s Fitness, Good Housekeeping, and Smart Money. Internationally, Chris has been featured on Serbian, Canadian, and Chinese television, as well as in Boarding, Lights Out, and numerous blogs where he has shared best practices for education, mental health, and parenting.A proud father of two boys (Danilo, b. 2002, and Sava, b. 2004), Chris and his wife, Simonida (a chemist and musician who grew up in Belgrade, Serbia), live in New Hampshire, in the northeast United States. To learn more about Dr. Chris Thurber and his upcoming book, check out:Website: https://drchristhurber.com/Book: https://www.amazon.com/Unlikely-Art-Parental-Pressure-Positive/dp/0306874776/ref=sr_1_1?crid=S17HUC7NNFRF&amp;dchild=1&amp;keywords=the+unlikely+art+of+parental+pressure&amp;qid=1620054824&amp;sprefix=the+unlikely+art+of+par%2Caps%2C156&amp;sr=8-1Learn more about you host, Brittney-Nichole:Websites: www.catalyst4change.com; www.generationeq.orgFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/brittney.connor2321LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brittney-nichole-connor-savarda-2b5737137/Instagram:  https://www.instagram.com/bncs_23/Book:  https://www.amazon.com/EQ-Deficiency-Emotional-Intelligence-Compassion/#emotionalintelligence #emotionscoach #author #theeqdeficiency #emotionalagility #EQ #EQpodcast #podcast  #self-awareness #parentingtips #parentalpressure #mindfulness #emotionalintelligencepodcastSupport the show

Episode 84: Living and Leading with Emotional Intelligence: The Unlikely Art of Parental Pressure With Dr. Chris Thurber. In this episode, you hear from psychologist, educator, author, and parent, Dr. Chris Thurber. as we discuss his upcoming book, The Unlikely Art of Parental Pressure: A Positive Approach to Pushing Your Child to Be Their Best Self. Dr. Thurber is a thought leader in positive youth development. He has dedicated his professional life to improving how caring adults teach and lead young people and to enhancing the experience of adventurous young people who are spending time away from home. A graduate of Harvard University and UCLA, Chris has served as a psychologist and instructor at Phillips Exeter Academy since 1999. An entrepreneur from a young age, Dr. Thurber founded Prep4Camp and Prep4School to teach young people how to prevent intense homesickness and make joyful, successful transitions to boarding school and summer camp. One of Chris’s first Prep4 videos won a Telly Award (Bronze) for best Non-Broadcast Instructional Video. Camps and schools on five continents have invited Dr. Thurber to deliver keynotes, contribute articles, and lead workshops for faculty, families, staff, and students. His award-winning preparatory book for new camper families, The Summer Camp Handbook, was recently translated into Mandarin to help launch the youth camp movement in China. His latest book is The Unlikely Art of Parental Pressure: A Positive Approach to Pushing Your Child to Be Their Best Self. Chris’s writing has won several awards, including a National Parenting Press Gold Award and a Golden Quill Award. He has appeared on the Today Show, CBS This Morning, Martha Stewart, CNN, Fox, Canada AM, Beijing 57, and NPR. His research and musings on youth development and parenting have been featured in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, The Boston Globe, and numerous magazines, such as Parents, Parenting, Men’s Fitness, Good Housekeeping, and Smart Money. Internationally, Chris has been featured on Serbian, Canadian, and Chinese television, as well as in Boarding, Lights Out, and numerous blogs where he has shared best practices for education, mental health, and parenting. A proud father of two boys (Danilo, b. 2002, and Sava, b. 2004), Chris and his wife, Simonida (a chemist and musician who grew up in Belgrade, Serbia), live in New Hampshire, in the northeast United States. To learn more about Dr. Chris Thurber and his upcoming book, check out: Website: <a href="https://hankweisingerphd.com/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://drchristhurber.com/</a> Book: <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Unlikely-Art-Parental-Pressure-Positive/dp/0306874776/ref=sr_1_1?crid=S17HUC7NNFRF&amp;dchild=1&amp;keywords=the+unlikely+art+of+parental+pressure&amp;qid=1620054824&amp;sprefix=the+unlikely+art+of+par%2Caps%2C156&amp;sr=8-1" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://www.amazon.com/Unlikely-Art-Parental-Pressure-Positive/dp/0306874776/ref=sr_1_1?crid=S17HUC7NNFRF&amp;dchild=1&amp;keywords=the+unlikely+art+of+parental+pressure&amp;qid=1620054824&amp;sprefix=the+unlikely+art+of+par%2Caps%2C156&amp;sr=8-1</a> Learn more about you host, Brittney-Nichole: Websites: <a href="http://www.catalyst4change.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">www.catalyst4change.com</a>; <a href="http://www.generationeq.org" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">www.generationeq.org</a> Facebook: <a href="https://www.facebook.com/brittney.connor2321" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://www.facebook.com/brittney.connor2321</a> LinkedIn: <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/brittney-nichole-connor-savarda-2b5737137/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://www.linkedin.com/in/brittney-nichole-connor-savarda-2b5737137/</a> Instagram:  <a href="https://www.instagram.com/bncs_23/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://www.instagram.com/bncs_23/</a> Book:  <a href="https://www.amazon.com/EQ-Deficiency-Emotional-Intelligence-Compassion/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://www.amazon.com/EQ-Deficiency-Emotional-Intelligence-Compassion/</a> #emotionalintelligence #emotionscoach #author #theeqdeficiency #emotionalagility #EQ #EQpodcast #podcast  #self-awareness #parentingtips #parentalpressure #mindfulness #emotionalintelligencepodcast<a href="https://www.patreon.com/emotionalintelligencemagazine" rel="payment nofollow" target="_blank">Support the show</a>

The Unlikely Art of Parental Pressure With Dr. Chris Thurber

Change is all around us, whether you are at summer camp or not and questions abound: will cyborgs take over camp? Will camps have to become resource independent? Will our minds become unhinged? Take a moment to listen to Dr. Chris Thurber talk through these ideas in the (very!) optimistic backdrop of summer camp.

Change is all around us, whether you are at summer camp or not and questions abound: will cyborgs take over camp? Will camps have to become resource independent? Will our minds become unhinged? Take a moment to listen to <a href="https://drchristhurber.com/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Dr. Chris Thurber</a> talk through these ideas in the (very!) optimistic backdrop of summer camp.

Campocalypse: The Future of Summer Camp with Dr. Chris Thurber

Show notes &amp; links available here. In this episode, I'm chatting with Dr. Chris Thurber, a legendary trainer in the camp industry and a clinical psychologist who works at Phillips Exeter Academy, about how important it for parents to connect with their teens. Chris has developed online training programs for educators and youth leaders around the world and many of the best practices and concepts he teaches apply to parents. We also discuss how the skills kids learn at camp can help them to thrive in life. Big Ideas  Even one summer working at a summer camp can be so valuable for the experience gained and training in relational, leadership, and communication skills. Much of the training camp counselors receive is helpful for teachers and parents.  Thurber's Tic-Tac advice: Expend as little energy as possible, “no more energy than a Tic-Tac.” Take a break from lecturing or nagging and instead use the low-energy responses of a look, a point, or just saying the child’s name.   In our society today, it is harder than ever to be an adolescent. One big reason is the competitiveness of education. Colleges are getting more applications from students around the world as high school graduation rates continue to climb. Parents and students should consider alternatives to college such as apprenticeships and vocational training. Parents need to have more conversations with their kids--girls and especially boys--about their emotions.  Expressing empathy helps to alleviate the pressure that kids are feeling these days. When parents minimize or downplay their feelings, kids do not feel connected.  Quotes: Chris: "The reason I think Happy Campers is a brilliant book is you've taken the lessons that we get to practice in a very intense way as camp professionals for, you know, seven, eight, nine weeks with constant feedback about whether it works or not. And I don't mean that kids were filling our questionnaires. I mean, they're either listening or they're not, or they're being compliant or they're not...It's a wonderful laboratory and classroom for parenting." Chris: "We have an untapped resource in a sense at camp. Everyone who is lucky enough to be a staff member at a camp is going to be that much better as a parent. The rest of the world can benefit from what we've understood about child development and behavior management, leadership, supervision, physical and emotional safety." Chris: "Instead of having high school graduates who are excited about going to college or university, they're starting to feel the pressure, even in elementary school or early middle school, to set themselves apart from the crowd, to develop a unique talent, to begin preparing their resume for college." Chris: "It's creating a tremendous amount of pressure for adolescents and that's a problem. They're more anxious, more depressed. It's taking an emotional toll.  Also, we're not thinking creatively as adults about education broadly construed. You don't necessarily need a college degree." Chris: "Apprenticeship is the model we use at summer camp. We have younger leaders apprenticing with older leaders or younger counselors with older counselors so you're learning on the job. We should be applying that to more things." Chris: "It's awesome if you get a bachelor's degree in English literature or physics or computer science, but not everyone wants that, needs that or has that as a career path. And I think we have, as a society, fallen victim to the perceived prestige of a college or university degree and completely overlooked expanded opportunities for vocational training and apprenticeships." Audrey: "You know that what makes a thriving adult is not a test score or even a degree from us particular place. It's these character traits and these interpersonal skills and this emotional depth and all these things that actually can be counter to when we're so focused on these specific metrics." Audrey: "What do you want to be building and growing in yourself and in the kids you work with? You want people who are going to be great friends, who are going to stop and help someone who needs help. When you're so busy climbing your way up to something, you make decisions and sometimes you're not your best self." Chris: "I recommend camp because it's the ideal complement to a traditional or non-traditional classroom setting. You take kids from being mostly inside and bring them outside. You take kids from mostly sitting to mostly running around. You take kids from doing things that have a lot of numbers, quantitative marks associated with them and put them in less structured, less evaluative circumstances." Chris: "It's a way of stretching your brain and building resilience that will not only relieve stress and boost your mood, but also make you more resilient to future challenges. Camp is not the panacea, but it's a huge part of robust youth development." Chris: "Ask better questions. Students here, like students at a lot of schools, are really sick of parents asking, what were your grades? Or if we want to steer clear of performance markers, what'd you do today? How was school? Those are well-intentioned questions. They're benign but they're not nurturing a relationship."  Chris: "There are many students here with wonderful relationships with their parents. And I think a big key to that is taking an interest in your child as a person and how are they unique and how are they evolving, developing rather than continuing to try to fit them into some mold." Chris: "Kids need, people need room to be creative and be themselves. I want parents to encourage, to say that it's okay, who knows what it will lead to, but it doesn't need to lead to anything if it feeds your soul. The most authentically happy people in the world are the ones who tap into one of their signature strengths in service to other people." Audrey: "I think there's a lot of value in adults and parents showing kids what it's like to tap into those things even if it's different. If they see you doing something you enjoy, they learn that adults do things they enjoy and they're having fun and they meet other friends that way. So that modeling is really important." Chris: "Model this kind of humility and show your kids, not tell them, how to live. Show them what it is to balance work and play and sleep and get a little exercise and model what it's like to bounce back from failure. If you say something that you realize didn't have the intended effect or was the wrong thing to say, don't move on and pretend like nobody heard it. Talk about it, fix it. If you're enraged, that's not the time to debrief it, but you can always circle back." Chris: "Talk with your kids about what your vulnerabilities are. It's such an important thing to be able to do. For well-intentioned parents who make missteps, you shouldn't view your kids as fragile. They can bounce back from something you said or didn't say or forgot. They need to see you trying hard. They need to see you learning from mistakes." Chris: "Provide empathy but when you get to the end of your empathic statements, full stop, let it sink in. Let your kid respond. Let them just process the fact that you acknowledged some of the dimensions of their emotional experience. We are all tempted to immediately follow our empathic statement with problem-solving. But when someone is in distress, whether it's they didn't like the news they heard from a college or the grade they got on a test or the fact that you know their significant other just broke up with him by text message, or whatever it might be, they don't want to hear the solution right now and they probably know what the solution is anyway."    About Dr. Chris Thurber      Dr. Christopher Thurber enjoys creating and sharing original content for business leaders, independent educators, and youth development professionals. He is a board-certified clinical psychologist, educator, author, and father. Chris earned his BA from Harvard University in 1991 and a Ph.D. in clinical psychology from UCLA in 1997. A dedicated teacher from a young age, Chris has more than 30 years of experience working with camps and independent schools. He has written numerous book chapters and scholarly articles on leadership, homesickness, and youth development. An award-winning contributor to Camping Magazine and Camp Business, Chris has also shared his opinions and expertise on national and international radio, television, print media, podcasts, and webinars, including The Today Show, Martha Stewart, and CNN. In 1999, after a two-year post-doctoral fellowship at the University of Washington School of Medicine, Chris accepted a position as psychologist and instructor at Phillips Exeter Academy, a coeducational, independent school in seacoast New Hampshire. Combining his love of research, teaching, and clinical work, Chris’s work at Exeter has grown to include publications and presentations for The Association of Boarding Schools (TABS) the British Boarding Schools Association (BSA) and the Australian Boarding Schools Association (ABSA). Chris has keynoted conferences for all three associations and has delivered guest lectures on the differences between Chinese and American public education, as well as the complementary nature of schools and camps at schools in Beijing, Shanghai, Hangzhou, and Wenzhou. In 2000, Chris and his lifelong friend, Dr. Jon Malinowski, co-authored the critically acclaimed Summer Camp Handbook, hailed by psychologist and parent, Dr. John Weisz, as “a remarkable accomplishment…the best in its field…required reading for every camper’s family…the most comprehensive and scientifically sound coverage of the camp experience available.” The Summer Camp Handbook has since sold tens of thousands of copies, won a Parenting Press Gold Award, and been translated into Chinese. As part of his lifelong effort to enhance the camp experience for young people, Chris has been a guest on The Today Show, Martha Stewart, CNN, Fox, CBS Morning News, and NPR. Chris is the Founder and CEO of CampSpirit, LLC,  which provides consultation and training to professional educators and youth leaders around the world. As he traveled across five continents to present in-person staff training workshops, Chris realized that no directors of summer youth programs had enough time with their employees to provide all the necessary training prior to opening day. The increased complexity of health regulations and accreditation standards, as well as heightened awareness of child abuse and risk management, made training demands higher than ever, especially for seasonal employees and volunteers. But with a fixed period of time during which to conduct on-site training, an innovative educational solution was imperative.       Resources Mentioned   Chris Thurber Prep4Camp.com Expert Online Training David Brook's Road to Character Bill Pollack's Real Boys Michael Thompson Related Posts/Podcasts Why Teens Need Summer Camp More Than Ever  Ep. 89: The Power of Connection to Build Good Men with Michael Reichert, Ph.D. Ep. 92: Creating Strong Relationships with Teens Ep. 32: 10 Benefits of Summer Camp for Teens Ep. 27: Raising Teens who Thrive with Stephen Wallace  11 Ways to Help Kids Create REAL Connections

<a href="http://sunshine-parenting.com/ep-122-how-to-connect-with-your-teen-with-chris-thurber" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Show notes &amp; links available here.</a> In this episode, I'm chatting with Dr. Chris Thurber, a legendary trainer in the camp industry and a clinical psychologist who works at Phillips Exeter Academy, about how important it for parents to connect with their teens. Chris has developed online training programs for educators and youth leaders around the world and many of the best practices and concepts he teaches apply to parents. We also discuss how the skills kids learn at camp can help them to thrive in life. Big Ideas <ul> <li>Even one summer working at a summer camp can be so valuable for the experience gained and training in relational, leadership, and communication skills.</li> <li>Much of the training camp counselors receive is helpful for teachers and parents. <ul> <li>Thurber's Tic-Tac advice: Expend as little energy as possible, “no more energy than a Tic-Tac.” Take a break from lecturing or nagging and instead use the low-energy responses of a look, a point, or just saying the child’s name.</li> </ul> </li> <li>In our society today, it is harder than ever to be an adolescent. One big reason is the competitiveness of education. Colleges are getting more applications from students around the world as high school graduation rates continue to climb.</li> <li>Parents and students should consider alternatives to college such as apprenticeships and vocational training.</li> <li>Parents need to have more conversations with their kids--girls and especially boys--about their emotions.  Expressing empathy helps to alleviate the pressure that kids are feeling these days. When parents minimize or downplay their feelings, kids do not feel connected.</li> </ul> Quotes: Chris: "The reason I think <a href="https://sunshine-parenting.com/happy/" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Happy Campers</a> is a brilliant book is you've taken the lessons that we get to practice in a very intense way as camp professionals for, you know, seven, eight, nine weeks with constant feedback about whether it works or not. And I don't mean that kids were filling our questionnaires. I mean, they're either listening or they're not, or they're being compliant or they're not...It's a wonderful laboratory and classroom for parenting." Chris: "We have an untapped resource in a sense at camp. Everyone who is lucky enough to be a staff member at a camp is going to be that much better as a parent. The rest of the world can benefit from what we've understood about child development and behavior management, leadership, supervision, physical and emotional safety." Chris: "Instead of having high school graduates who are excited about going to college or university, they're starting to feel the pressure, even in elementary school or early middle school, to set themselves apart from the crowd, to develop a unique talent, to begin preparing their resume for college." Chris: "It's creating a tremendous amount of pressure for adolescents and that's a problem. They're more anxious, more depressed. It's taking an emotional toll.  Also, we're not thinking creatively as adults about education broadly construed. You don't necessarily need a college degree." Chris: "Apprenticeship is the model we use at summer camp. We have younger leaders apprenticing with older leaders or younger counselors with older counselors so you're learning on the job. We should be applying that to more things." Chris: "It's awesome if you get a bachelor's degree in English literature or physics or computer science, but not everyone wants that, needs that or has that as a career path. And I think we have, as a society, fallen victim to the perceived prestige of a college or university degree and completely overlooked expanded opportunities for vocational training and apprenticeships." Audrey: "You know that what makes a thriving adult is not a test score or even a degree from us particular place. It's these character traits and these interpersonal skills and this emotional depth and all these things that actually can be counter to when we're so focused on these specific metrics." Audrey: "What do you want to be building and growing in yourself and in the kids you work with? You want people who are going to be great friends, who are going to stop and help someone who needs help. When you're so busy climbing your way up to something, you make decisions and sometimes you're not your best self." Chris: "I recommend camp because it's the ideal complement to a traditional or non-traditional classroom setting. You take kids from being mostly inside and bring them outside. You take kids from mostly sitting to mostly running around. You take kids from doing things that have a lot of numbers, quantitative marks associated with them and put them in less structured, less evaluative circumstances." Chris: "It's a way of stretching your brain and building resilience that will not only relieve stress and boost your mood, but also make you more resilient to future challenges. Camp is not the panacea, but it's a huge part of robust youth development." Chris: "Ask better questions. Students here, like students at a lot of schools, are really sick of parents asking, what were your grades? Or if we want to steer clear of performance markers, what'd you do today? How was school? Those are well-intentioned questions. They're benign but they're not nurturing a relationship." Chris: "There are many students here with wonderful relationships with their parents. And I think a big key to that is taking an interest in your child as a person and how are they unique and how are they evolving, developing rather than continuing to try to fit them into some mold." Chris: "Kids need, people need room to be creative and be themselves. I want parents to encourage, to say that it's okay, who knows what it will lead to, but it doesn't need to lead to anything if it feeds your soul. The most authentically happy people in the world are the ones who tap into one of their signature strengths in service to other people." Audrey: "I think there's a lot of value in adults and parents showing kids what it's like to tap into those things even if it's different. If they see you doing something you enjoy, they learn that adults do things they enjoy and they're having fun and they meet other friends that way. So that modeling is really important." Chris: "Model this kind of humility and show your kids, not tell them, how to live. Show them what it is to balance work and play and sleep and get a little exercise and model what it's like to bounce back from failure. If you say something that you realize didn't have the intended effect or was the wrong thing to say, don't move on and pretend like nobody heard it. Talk about it, fix it. If you're enraged, that's not the time to debrief it, but you can always circle back." Chris: "Talk with your kids about what your vulnerabilities are. It's such an important thing to be able to do. For well-intentioned parents who make missteps, you shouldn't view your kids as fragile. They can bounce back from something you said or didn't say or forgot. They need to see you trying hard. They need to see you learning from mistakes." Chris: "Provide empathy but when you get to the end of your empathic statements, full stop, let it sink in. Let your kid respond. Let them just process the fact that you acknowledged some of the dimensions of their emotional experience. We are all tempted to immediately follow our empathic statement with problem-solving. But when someone is in distress, whether it's they didn't like the news they heard from a college or the grade they got on a test or the fact that you know their significant other just broke up with him by text message, or whatever it might be, they don't want to hear the solution right now and they probably know what the solution is anyway."   About Dr. Chris Thurber Dr. Christopher Thurber enjoys creating and sharing original content for business leaders, independent educators, and youth development professionals. He is a board-certified clinical psychologist, educator, author, and father. Chris earned his BA from Harvard University in 1991 and a Ph.D. in clinical psychology from UCLA in 1997. A dedicated teacher from a young age, Chris has more than 30 years of experience working with camps and independent schools. He has written numerous book chapters and scholarly articles on leadership, homesickness, and youth development. An award-winning contributor to Camping Magazine and Camp Business, Chris has also shared his opinions and expertise on national and international radio, television, print media, podcasts, and webinars, including The Today Show, Martha Stewart, and CNN. In 1999, after a two-year post-doctoral fellowship at the University of Washington School of Medicine, Chris accepted a position as psychologist and instructor at Phillips Exeter Academy, a coeducational, independent school in seacoast New Hampshire. Combining his love of research, teaching, and clinical work, Chris’s work at Exeter has grown to include publications and presentations for The Association of Boarding Schools (TABS) the British Boarding Schools Association (BSA) and the Australian Boarding Schools Association (ABSA). Chris has keynoted conferences for all three associations and has delivered guest lectures on the differences between Chinese and American public education, as well as the complementary nature of schools and camps at schools in Beijing, Shanghai, Hangzhou, and Wenzhou. In 2000, Chris and his lifelong friend, Dr. Jon Malinowski, co-authored the critically acclaimed Summer Camp Handbook, hailed by psychologist and parent, Dr. John Weisz, as “a remarkable accomplishment…the best in its field…required reading for every camper’s family…the most comprehensive and scientifically sound coverage of the camp experience available.” The Summer Camp Handbook has since sold tens of thousands of copies, won a Parenting Press Gold Award, and been translated into Chinese. As part of his lifelong effort to enhance the camp experience for young people, Chris has been a guest on The Today Show, Martha Stewart, CNN, Fox, CBS Morning News, and NPR. Chris is the Founder and CEO of <a href="https://drchristhurber.com/about_campspirit/" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">CampSpirit, LLC</a>,  which provides consultation and training to professional educators and youth leaders around the world. As he traveled across five continents to present in-person staff training workshops, Chris realized that no directors of summer youth programs had enough time with their employees to provide all the necessary training prior to opening day. The increased complexity of health regulations and accreditation standards, as well as heightened awareness of child abuse and risk management, made training demands higher than ever, especially for seasonal employees and volunteers. But with a fixed period of time during which to conduct on-site training, an innovative educational solution was imperative. Resources Mentioned <a href="http://www.Drchristhurber.com" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Chris Thurber</a> <a href="https://www.prep4school.com/" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Prep4Camp.com</a> <a href="https://expertonlinetraining.com" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Expert Online Training</a> <a href="https://www.amazon.com/The-Road-to-Character/dp/B00V3WMYN0/ref=sr_1_1?gclid=CjwKCAiAu9vwBRAEEiwAzvjq-7fGLPeDoBfdhDGvosbSj7McPBOsKGI1NJLjOWLpe9PqDpV1U5bPtBoCviIQAvD_BwE&amp;hvadid=267901565406&amp;hvdev=c&amp;hvlocphy=9031538&amp;hvnetw=g&amp;hvpos=1t3&amp;hvqmt=e&amp;hvrand=570015223845387734&amp;hvtargid=aud-837858999240%3Akwd-311202965440&amp;hydadcr=22592_10356144&amp;keywords=the+road+to+character+audiobook&amp;qid=1578609966&amp;sr=8-1" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">David Brook's Road to Character</a> <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Real-Boys-Rescuing-Myths-Boyhood/dp/B0785JDP43/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=pollack+real+boys&amp;qid=1578610002&amp;s=audible&amp;sr=1-1" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Bill Pollack's Real Boys</a> <a href="http://michaelthompson-phd.com/" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Michael Thompson</a> Related Posts/Podcasts <a href="https://sunshine-parenting.com/teens-need-summer-camp-ever/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Why Teens Need Summer Camp More Than Ever</a> <a href="https://sunshine-parenting.com/ep-89-the-power-of-connection-to-build-good-men-with-michael-reichert-ph-d/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"> Ep. 89: The Power of Connection to Build Good Men with Michael Reichert, Ph.D.</a> <a href="https://sunshine-parenting.com/ep-92/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Ep. 92: Creating Strong Relationships with Teens</a> <a href="https://sunshine-parenting.com/ep-32/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Ep. 32: 10 Benefits of Summer Camp for Teens</a> <a href="https://sunshine-parenting.com/ep-27/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Ep. 27: Raising Teens who Thrive with Stephen Wallace</a> <a href="https://sunshine-parenting.com/11-ways-help-kids-create-real-connections/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"> 11 Ways to Help Kids Create REAL Connections</a>