Parenting Classes

Balanced Parenting: Stress Reduction for Parents

Six-week courses are offered several times each year.
For the most recent flier click here

Dates:   2012 class dates to be announced soon
Location:   106 Washington Ave. #5, Pleasantville, NY, 10570

Please let us know if you would like to be notified about other upcoming classes.

Stress is inevitable, but unmanaged stress can take over our lives. Dedicating the time to take care of yourself as a parent through building your stress management skills profoundly benefits your family. Mindfulness is an evidence-based technique that facilitates overall well-being, cognitive flexibility, and communication skills, and is a proactive way to address the effects of stress on yourself and your children.

By learning to manage life’s challenges differently, parents respond in new and more effective ways. This six-week course serves as an introduction to simple practices for parents, including mindfulness meditation, that help lower stress. It is the prerequisite for a follow up series guiding parents in teaching mindfulness to children.

Balanced Parenting reflects advances in the fields of medicine, neurology, psychology and child development.  It is modeled on the research-backed “Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction” class, initially developed at the University of Massachusetts Medical Center.  Similar programs are now employed at dozens of university settings nationwide.  A 2011 study showed beneficial brain changes even after an eight week program.

Balanced Parenting classes offer an opportunity to explore how we parent and why we make the day-to-day choices that we do.  As we lower our stress level, we become less reactive and more observant of whatever is going on in our lives – such as issues with our kids, internal fears and habitual ways we deal with challenging situations – permitting us to make more skillful choices for ourselves and our children.

Integrating class discussions and at home exercises with behavioral management techniques and simple, accessible meditation practices, we will explore aspects of how we parent and how we experience and manage stress.  Skills for handling challenges along with exercises to enhance focus, self-awareness and communication are taught. Practical information about effective parenting techniques are also discussed.

This class series consists of six weekly two-hour meetings along with short daily exercises at home.

Click here for a UCLA research summary regarding mindfulness-based stress reduction programs

Please use the form below to request information only about classes.

For information about Dr. Bertin’s practice or for medical questions, call 914 841 2302.