Dr. Abigail Gewirtz, child psychologist, Co-Director of REACH, and Foundation Professor of Psychology at Arizona State University presented “When the World Seems Like a Scary Place: Essential Conversations for Anxious Parents and Worried Kids”, based on her book (Workman 2020). For many children and adolescents, the outside world can feel scary, with a 24/7 news cycle that focuses on negative events, political divisions and rancor, frightening climate events, and other concerns. Parents, who themselves may be anxious, often lack the tools to help their children. This webinar aims to help parents to help their children manage a scary world by using an everyday tool at everyone’s disposal: conversations. The presentation was also recommended for educators, teens, and young adults. This webinar was funded by generous grants from Three Valleys Community Foundation and Tri-Valley Nonprofit Fund.
4:06 Overview of the presentation
5:48 Bad news and stressful events
17:56 Starting with parents
20:46 Nature, nurture, and the parent-child dance
32:20 Children and emotions
38:13 Pause, breathe, notice
39:35 Emotion coaching
47:39 Conversations as our best defense
48:46 Having the conversations
49:12 Take ten
50:29 Q&A
Dr. Gewirtz and her team have conducted research in many countries, examining preventive interventions to strengthen diverse families affected by traumatic stressors. She has been a clinician, researcher, program developer, and trainer of providers. A fellow of the Association for Psychological Science and the American Psychological Association, she has lectured in the U.S. and across the world on parenting in times of stress.
Dr. Gewirtz’s free webinar was held on Tuesday, September 10, 2024, at 6:30 – 7:30 pm PDT via Zoom. Her lecture included 10 minutes for questions and answers following the presentation. The Mental Health Association for Chinese Communities at https://www.mhacc-usa.org provided simultaneous Chinese interpretation.
We were honored and privileged that Dr. Gewirtz shared her knowledge and experience of using daily conversations to help kids manage worries and anxiety. We were grateful to our audience for tuning in across United States as well as from Argentina, Australia, Canada, China, HongKong, Kenya, Taiwan, and United Arab Emirates. Thank you, MHACC Founder and President Elaine Peng. Thank you, Ida Shaw, for simultaneous Chinese Interpretation.