Wednesday November 3, 2004 brought approximately 300 people to the gym of St. Joan of Arc Church to hear Dr. Lawrence Shapiro speak at St David’s 13th Annual Symposium.

St David’s is a child development and family services agency started in 1961. It provides innovative programming to meet the needs of children, young adults and families in the Twin City area. Their services include early childhood education, rehabilitative therapy and services for children and young adults with special needs, mental health services and services aimed at preventing child abuse and neglect. Presently serving 2000 children and families, St David’s is committed to building stronger families and communities.

The Symposium was started in 1991 in memory of Mandy Overton. Mandy died unexpectedly in 1991 as an infant. Her sister Amy was a student at St. David’s at the time. Both Amy and her parents received support and caring from the staff at St David’s. Mandy’s family established this symposium to honor their daughter and build upon their ongoing commitment to the children and families in our community.

Lawrence Shapiro, Ph.D. was the presenter for this evening. He has written ten books with his latest being The Secret Language of Children and is one of the nation’s leading experts on teaching children emotional intelligence skills including empathy, self control, emotional communication and more. Dr Shapiro is a renowned child psychologist who has created more than 75 therapeutic games which are used by thousands of parents and professional around the world.

Dr Shapiro’s lecture was centered on how we can give our children emotional intelligence. He believes that IQ is predetermined and we can not change that in our children. But we can determine their emotional intelligence and how resilient they may be. Dr Shapiro says if we spend 10 minutes a day, we can give our children higher emotional intelligence, just by using the secret language of your child. Overall this means spending the ten minutes in some form of activity that will entice your child and bring about learning.

Dr Shapiro suggested four methods:

1. Non-verbal speech which can include making faces with your child that show different emotions. “Show me a face that means sad.” When you help your child express his feelings you help him learn self control and the importance of relationships.
2. Playing communication games such as Mommy says (Simon Says) you can teach all types of jobs and activities. Mom is the leader one day, and the child another. Soon the child is following the examples you are sharing with him. Another game is Follow the Helpful Leader, using the same techniques for discussion of doing things for other people.
3. A positive attitude (or a negative one) may determine whether or not your child grows up happy and successful. Teaching through story books and positive story telling help make a child feel positive. Children love to hear stories, and especially stories that you makeup. A story can be made out of your day even it was a bad day. Look for the positive and express to them how you made the day better. Positive sleep talk will also give them a feeling of safeness and serenity.
4. Art is another form of expression. Use a big piece of white paper and use just four colors that signify moods. Family drawing time is another good idea to build on what is going on in your family or community. Photo therapy is excellent for older children. Give them a camera and have them take pictures of all types of beauty. Then discuss the beauty of the world.

Nancy Lynch says, "Joy is being a wife, Mom of fourteen, eight with varying disabilities and living at home, Grandma of thirteen, and Great Grandma of three. Serenity is listening and watching the ocean, alone, at our home on Maui. Passion is friends, photography, reading, swimming and children." Nancy can be reached at nalynch@aol.com.

Dr Shapiro has a 26 year old birth daughter, and six years ago he and his wife adopted an eight month old baby girl from China. He shared with us videos of her as he was explaining his ideas to us. She made a delightful guinea pig, making the evening fun and informative. Now to find those 10 minutes each and every day!