Annual Conference: Moral Development: Implications for Clinical Work with Children and Parents

Continuing Education
4 CE credits for most NY and CT Licenses (pending)

About

This conference invites reflection upon the cultivation of morality within
today’s families often challenged by an exclusive emphasis on individual development,
the weakening of binding institutions, and the influence of the Internet. How can clinicians
help parents hold in mind the importance of moral development alongside their goals
and good wishes for their children’s future? How can they help parents define and
integrate values that support the well-being of their own families and society? Through
presentations and discussions, we will delve into these timely and urgent questions.

Richard Weissbourd, PhD
Concerns regarding the deleterious impact of contemporary culture influence parents
and educators to focus intensely on the well-being and achievements of children.
Too much preoccupation with these two aspects of individual success—and the
constant praising of children that goes with it—can undermine children’s capacity
to care for others and their investment in the common good. Further, concentrating
so much on achievement and happiness risks making kids not only less caring, but
ironically, less happy and consequently less likely to achieve at high levels. In the
current socio-political climate, where tolerance and empathy seem to be in short
supply, it is more important than ever to help children develop concern for others.
This talk will explore these current trends and help clinicians working with families
understand these challenging dilemmas.

Ken Barish, PhD
In this talk, Dr. Barish will discuss Dr. Weissbourd’s ideas on moral development in
children, highlighting areas of agreement and disagreement. The discussion will focus
on how our current culture of individual achievement erodes children’s capacity for
empathy and the importance of helping others. Dr. Barish will offer recommendations to
therapists on how we can most effectively immunize our children and teens against the
emotional pathogens of loneliness and shame, help promote constructive engagement
in their communities, and foster a spirit of generosity and kindness toward others.

About the Speakers

Richard Weissbourd, PhD, is a Senior Lecturer at the Harvard
Graduate School of Education, and he also teaches at the Kennedy
School of Government. His work focuses on moral development,
meaning and purpose, mental health challenges among teens and
young adults and effective schools and services for children facing
risks. He directs the Making Caring Common Project, a national
effort to make moral and social development priorities in child-raising
and provide strategies to schools and parents for promoting com-
mitment moral and social capacities. He leads an initiative to reform
college admissions, Turning the Tide, which seeks to elevate ethical
character, reduce excessive achievement pressure and increase
equity and access in the college admissions process. Weissbourd
is the author of The Vulnerable Child: What Really Hurts America’s
Children and What We Can Do About It (Addison-Wesley, 1996),
named by the American School Board Journal as one of the top 10
education books of all time. His most recent book, The Parents We
Mean to Be: How Well-Intentioned Adults Undermine Children’s
Moral and Emotional Development (Houghton Mifflin 2009) was
named by The New Yorker as one of the top 24 books of 2009.

Ken Barish PhD, is a graduate and faculty member of the Westchester
Center for the Study of Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy. He is
also on the faculty of the William Alanson White Institute Child and
Adolescent Psychotherapy Training Program, Clinical Professor of
Psychology at Weill – Cornell Medical College, and Visiting Professor,
Tongji Medical College in Wuhan, China. He is a Fellow of the
American Psychological Association. Ken is the author of How To Be
a Better Child Therapist: An Integrative Model for Therapeutic Change
(W. W. Norton, 2018) and Pride and Joy: A Guide to Understanding
Your Child’s Emotions and Solving Family Problems (Oxford
University Press, 2012). Pride and Joy is the winner of the 2013
International Book Award and the 2013 Eric Hoffer Book Award