September 22, 2009 through November 10, 2009

Join us online for an amazing event that brings together parents, educators and teenagers to discuss issues that affect our families. We’re focusing on 8 books and have invited the authors to join us for our online “book club.” 

We’re opening up the lines for live calls and look forward to your questions and comments. We’ll also be taking questions by email.  

September 22, 2009 8:00 pm EST

In The Power of Play, renowned child development expert Dr. David Elkind provides parents with an understanding of the powerful role of play in children’s emotional and academic development. According to Dr. Elkind, “Over the past two decades, children have lost twelve hours of free time a week, including eight hours of unstructured play and outdoor activities.” The health impact of the disappearance of play is already apparent: 13% of our children are obese. But equally troubling is the way this lack of play stunts children’s emotional, behavioral, and even their intellectual growth.

Dr. Elkind explores the reasons we’ve allowed play to be virtually eliminated from our children’s lives, and suggests numerous ways to reintroduce it. But it’s not just any kind of play he advocates. It’s unscheduled, unstructured, creative play—for that’s the kind that nurtures the curiosity, cooperation, and imagination that serve as the bedrock of future learning.

David Elkind, Ph.D., is Professor Emeritus in the Eliot-Pearson Department of Child Development at Tufts University. He is the author of over a dozen books, including The Power of Play, All Grown Up and No Place to Go and the classic The Hurried Child (now available in a 25^th anniversary edition). He lives in Cape Cod.  

Tuesday September 29, 2009 8:00 PM EST

In 2008, media magnet Lenore Skenazy was deemed “America’s Worst Mom” for allowing her 9-year-old son to navigate New York City subway alone. In 2009, she found herself unexpectedly thrust back into the spotlight when a train conductor found her now 10-year-old son riding solo on the Long Island Railroad and called the police.  An outpouring of criticism and praise thrust her into the center of the heated debate between hovering helicopter parents and the ones who said we can take a little step back.

Now, in her hilarious and spirited new book FREE RANGE KIDS: Giving Our Kids the Freedom We Enjoyed Without Going Nuts with Worry,  Skenazy separates the truths from the myths behind parents’ biggest fears. Using sound statistics and entertaining anecdotes, she encourages parents to stop worrying about the one in a million dangers their kids could face – from being mauled by an animal to being abducted by a stranger --  and start letting them enjoy the adventures of childhood.

Lenore Skenazy has a syndicated newspaper column appearing in more than 100 papers. Her work has appeared in The (London) Times, New York Daily News, Reader’s Digest, Ladies Home Journal, The Nation, and Mad Magazine. An NPR commentator and former TV reporter, she has also been a guest on The TODAY Show and Dr. Phil. Her blog www.freerangekids.com has attracted several hundred thousand readers and continues to grow. A graduate of Yale and Columbia, she lives in Manhattan with her husband and two extremely pre-teen sons.

 Tuesday October 6, 2009 8:00 PM EST

Vanessa Van Petten is one of the nation's youngest experts, or 'youthologists' on parenting and adolescents.  She wrote her parenting book from the teen's perspective, called You're Grounded!, when she was just 17. 

After winning the Mom’s Choice Award in 2009 and launching her popular parenting blog, she is now on a national speaking tour, reaching out to both parents and teenagers talking about what young people really wish adults knew about them. Her blog: RadicalParenting.com, which she writes with 75 other teenage writers from ages 12 to 20, is read by thousands of teens and adults daily and has been featured on hundreds of other parenting sites around the web as the only teen written parenting blog.

She has been featured on CNN, CBS Miami and Fox New York and has been in the Wall Street Journal, Teen Vogue, Atlanta Insite Magazine and the World Journal.  She has been an expert on numerous radio programs including Playboy Radio, KBUR, WCOJ Philadelphia and more for giving a young perspective on awesome parenting.

 Tuesday October 13, 2009 8:00 PM EST

Diane E. Levin, Ph.D., is a professor of education at Wheelock College in Boston.  She is an internationally recognized expert on how violent and sexualized media and commercial culture affect young children and what professionals and parents can do about it.  She has also done extensive work on how to deal with the impact of violence and war on children.  Levin is co-founder of the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood (www.commercialfreechildhood.org) and Teachers Resisting Unhealthy Children’s Entertainment (www.truceteachers.org). 

So Sexy So Soon is an invaluable and practical guide for parents who are fed up, confused, and even scared by what their kids–or their kids’ friends–do and say. Diane E. Levin, Ph.D., and Jean Kilbourne, Ed.D., internationally recognized experts in early childhood development and the impact of the media on children and teens, understand that saying no to commercial culture–TV, movies, toys, Internet access, and video games–isn’t a realistic or viable option for most families. Instead, they offer parents essential, age-appropriate strategies to counter the assault.

Diane E. Levin, Ph. D. is the author of eight books including So Sexy So Soon:  The New Sexualized Childhood and What Parents Can Do to Protect Their Kids; The War Play Dilemma; Teaching Young Children to Violent Times; Remote Control Childhood?; and, From Conflict to Peace Building: Lessons from early Childhood Programs throughout the World.

Tuesday, October 20, 2009 8:00 PM EST

Izzy Rose is an Emmy award-winning television producer from the San Francisco Bay Area and the best-selling author of The Package Deal: My (not-so) Glamorous Transition from Single Gal to Instant Mom. She’s the creator of stepmothersmilk.com, a blog and resource site for the modern-day stepmom with national and international readership. She’s a regular contributor to Stepmom Magazine and she’s appeared countless times on television and radio programs in San Francisco, Austin and Memphis. Her work has been called “compulsively readable,”  “laugh out loud,” “heartfelt,” and “ultimately reassuring.” She’s currently living in Austin, Texas with her husband and her two stepsons.

Candid, smart, entertaining, and spot-on, THE PACKAGE DEAL follows Izzy’s first year as she struggles to adjust to life as an “instant mom” to the “Young One” and the “Tall One,” all the while trying to remain true to herself and hold on to a bit of her personal life and professional identity in the process. Whether it’s enforcing her own brand of quirky “stepmother rules,” trolling for new gal pals, making time for hot married sex, or searching for meaning at Bed Bath & Beyond, Izzy’s memoir is a toast to the richness of her new life. Brimming with grace and humor, THE PACKAGE DEAL is a tribute to any woman who has ever fallen in love and then asked, What exactly did I get myself into? The Package Deal is her first book.

Tuesday, October 27, 2009 8:00 PM EST

Joanne Stern has been a psychotherapist for more than twenty years and a parent for thirty-three, including five years as a single mom. A much-sought-after speaker and keynote presenter, she is an expert in the field of family relationships and communication. She has worked with families and their children and taught parenting courses. Dr Stern holds bachelor's and master's degrees from Northwestern University, a double masters' in counseling psychology and theology from Fuller Theological Seminary, and a PhD in human and organizational systems from Fielding Graduate University. Joanne lives in Aspen, Colorado with her husband, Terry Hale."

In Parenting Is a Contact Sport, Stern  shows you how to connect with your kids with dignity and respect — whether they’re toddlers, teenagers or young adults — and how to nurture an open and trusting relationship, that makes you the one your kids talk to and listen to most. She illustrates how to have fun with them and create a safe haven for them, while still maintaining good discipline. It’s parenting advice for the real world where, let’s admit it, you can’t control every move your kids make or prevent mistakes or heartaches. But if you follow her advice, you can be the one who walks by their side, even during the tough times — by creating a connection that lasts for life.

Tuesday, November 3, 2009 8:00 PM EST

The New Global Student is packed with all kinds of great information and inspiring stories for students, educators, business leaders, community activists and others interested in how students across the U.S. are getting bold and creating their own show-stopping global education combos.

She insists that preparing students for their most thrilling and fulfilling opportunities in the 21st-century global economy does not require elite preschools, state-of-the-art elementary schools, high-tech middle schools, international high schools, or Ivy League universities

Tune in to hear Maya explain how to skip the SAT, save thousands on tuition and get a truly International Education. 

Tuesday, November 10, 2009 8:00 PM EST

Journalist and writer Peg Tyre is a prize-winning investigative reporter and the author of the controversial and widely praised book The Trouble With Boys: A Surprising Report Card on Our Sons, Their Schools and What Parents and Educators Must Do

Tyre spent two decades in journalism, as a magazine feature writer at New York magazine, a newspaper reporter at New York Newsday, an on-air correspondent for CNN and most recently, as a long time staff writer for Newsweek, covering social trends and education. Between 2001 and 2008, she pursued her passion: examining the fault lines in American culture formed by class, gender, race, ideology and upbringing for the national weekly. Praised for being "analytical," "often counterintuitive" and "not afraid to take on society's sacred cows," Tyre's cover stories were top sellers at the magazine. She was twice nominated for a National Magazine Award (the industry equivalent of the Pulitzer Prize) received two Clarion Awards as well as sharing the Overseas' Press Club Ed Cunningham Prize for magazine feature writing. She was also honored by the Education Writers Association. She has discussed her stories on The Today Show, Good Morning America, Fox & Friends, Anderson Cooper and NPR (Boston).

New York Times best-selling writer Michael Thompson, co-author of Raising Cain, has called it "passionate, powerful and persuasive." Dr. Mel Levine, author of A Mind at a Time, called it "vital." He wrote, "Boys have their troubles and The Trouble With Boys sensitively reveals them." James Garbarino, author of Lost Boys, says The Trouble with Boys "Changes the way we look at something we thought we understood.

This event is free!  Just join our community at www.summitseriesforfamilies.com and we’ll send you our updated schedule, dial-in information, and instructions for submitting questions to the authors in advance.  We welcome your participation!