Friday, November 11, 2016: 6pm-9pm and Saturday, November 12, 2016: 9am-12pm
Redeemer Presbyterian Church of Memphis, 651 S Cooper St, Memphis, TN 38112
Register online at bottom of page! If preferred, registration will be available on-site on November 11, starting at 5:45pm. The seminar is provided free to the public.
This seminar is for you if you’ve ever caught yourself saying (or thinking) things along these lines:
-“ Help! These kids don’t come with instructions.”
- “Am I doing this parenting thing right?”
- “Will my kids turn out alright? I’m afraid I’m really messing them up!”
- “Will I come through the parenting enterprise with my sanity remotely intact?”
These are the nervous questions we ask ourselves as parents. We are often frightened and desperate for anything that resembles a strategy. Packaged parenting strategies tend to be good for generating these wonderful (ahem…) results:
- Controlling kids and making them high-performance robots (at least for a while)
- Exasperating your kids and provoking insubordinate rebellion
- Numbing your kids into states of indifference and/or fear in life
- Taming your kids and putting out child-rearing brushfires.
Though all parents need practical advice (this seminar will offer plenty), at the end of the day, parenting was never meant to be a packaged strategy offering you a safe, sanitary and easy mechanical process. Parenting isn’t a paint-by-the-numbers game. Parenting is a wild relationship adventure ride.
What you really need is a story that helps explain life’s adventure ride as well as an understanding of the nourishment and vitamins kids need in order to developmentally grow up and mature in the journey. You need tools to understand the loving relationship adventure of which you and your children are a part in this world. You need wisdom regarding how you can relationally help them struggle to grow up and flourish in the world. One of the cool things you’ll discover is that while you’re helping them grow…well…even if unintentionally, they are being used to help you grow and flourish also.
We all tend to fall primarily in one of the following 2 main categories – Hopefully this seminar will provide insightful loving assistance to you either way.
1. “I’m a horrible parent.” - This seminar will help comfort and encourage you while seeking to offer some helpful guidance moving forward.
2. “I’m a perfect parent!!” This seminar will seek to help awaken you from your dream and assist you in joining the rest of us in the real world. If that doesn’t work then enjoy the fantasy ride, but please know we are here for you and ready to have you join us in the exciting struggle when you awake.
If you’re not a parent, this is a relational model that will be beneficial in all relationships. All are invited.
Dr. John Cox is a clinical psychologist, speaker, and columnist based out of Jackson, MS.In his free time, he enjoys cooking, windsurfing and listening to Tom Waits’ music. John and his wife of 33 years, Norma, are emptynesters and have three daughters ages 30, 27, and 24.
B.A. in Psychology and English from the University of Mississippi
M.A. in Marriage and Family Therapy from Reformed Theological Seminary
Doctorate from Rosemead School of Psychology in Los Angeles
He has practiced for 28 years at Live Oak Psychological Associates in Jackson, MS. In his private practice he specializes in individual psychotherapy with adults, marital therapy, and parent consultation and therapy for adolescents and children.