ECM has a long running history of teaching parenting workshops and teacher training in Bay Area preschools.

Email info@earlychildhoodmatters.org to find out how we can help your school.

Parent Education WORKSHOP EXAmples

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Your Willful Preschooler
Workshop for parents/caregivers with children 3-5 years old

Preschoolers are full of imagination, with budding social skills, and no-holds-barred disobedience! Join Rebecca Walsh, director of Early Childhood Matters, to find out why the preschool years can be more difficult than toddlerhood from a developmental perspective, and learn helpful positive discipline strategies to meet these challenging years heart open and head-on.

Topics include engaging your child in problem-solving; strategies for transitions (mealtimes, bedtimes, etc.), and ways to support your child's growing independence while creating more peace and harmony at home.

Helping Children with Sibling, Cousin, or Playmate Rivalry
Whether you have multiple children or an only child navigating friendships or family dynamics, this workshop is for you. We’ll explore how to support kids through conflict without stepping into the role of judge and jury—and how to shift the family dynamic from competition to cooperation.

Learn practical tools to help children work through disagreements, avoid “that’s not fair!” thinking, and develop the skills they need to resolve problems with empathy and respect. You’ll also gain insight into how to acknowledge emotions without taking sides and how to build a family culture that reduces rivalry and strengthens relationships over time.

Alternatives to Bribes and Punishments
Part of our Positive Discipline series, this workshop offers practical, compassionate strategies to guide your child’s behavior without relying on rewards, punishments, or time-outs. Instead of external motivators, we explore ways to build cooperation and connection through empathy, problem-solving, and respectful boundaries.

Through interactive activities and discussion, you'll learn how to recognize the root causes behind challenging behaviors and respond in ways that teach long-term skills. We’ll introduce a helpful chart of alternatives and provide real-life tools you can use immediately—like how to handle whining, interrupting, or loud outbursts—all while staying calm and centered as a parent. Join us as we move beyond quick fixes and into meaningful, lasting connection with our kids.

Increasing Autonomy, Self-Advocacy, and Resiliency

In today’s fast-paced, highly structured world, kids are often shielded from both physical and emotional risks. This workshop helps parents step back—intentionally—so children can step up. We’ll explore how to raise capable, confident kids who can handle disappointment, solve problems, and bounce back from challenges with growing independence.

Through the lens of Positive Discipline and informed by The Anxious Generation and How to Raise an Adult, we’ll discuss how to set firm, respectful limits while also creating space for autonomy. Learn how to help children build their “disappointment muscles,” advocate for themselves, and make real-world decisions as they grow. Whether it's navigating conflicts, taking healthy risks, or managing responsibilities, this class will give you the tools to stop over-functioning and start empowering.

This is not just about preparing kids for adulthood—it’s about giving them the confidence and competence to thrive right now.

The Overparenting Trap

Today’s children are growing up in a world with less freedom, fewer real-life challenges, and more screen time than ever before. While our intentions to protect them are good, over-sheltering can unintentionally leave kids unprepared for life’s demands. This class explores how to help young people build resilience, independence, and emotional strength by reintroducing healthy risks, reducing overmanagement, and encouraging problem-solving.

You’ll discover:

• The types of physical and emotional risks kids need to grow strong.
  

• How over-scheduled, adult-supervised activities can stunt social and emotional skills.
  

• The subtle ways parental screen use affects attachment and mental health.
  

• The 8 essential life skills every young adult should master by age 18.
  

Through discussion and practical examples, you’ll learn how to step back in ways that empower your child—so they can step forward with confidence.

Curiosity Questions and Using Active Listening to Help Children Talk More About Their Days, Feelings, and Problems at School

What is the single most important thing we can do to help our children see us a confidants in this challenging process of growing up? How do we move beyond the answers like "it was fine," or help our children share more about what is really behind statements like "I hate school (my teacher, my friend, gymnastics) etc.?" Surprisingly, it doesn't involve explaining the other side of the coin, how children in other countries are much worse off (guilty and guilty by the way!), or jumping in to solve the problem for them. While there are certainly times for us to share our ideas and perspectives (and we will discuss those), what children really need and want from us in order to be ready to hear that other side and begin to find their own solutions is what researchers call Active Listening.

"Active Listening is the single most important skill you can have in your parenting “toolbelt.”
It is a specific form of communication that lets another person know that you are “with them,” aware of what they are saying, accepting of their perspective, and appreciative of their situation. 

Really listening to your children is the best way to create a caring relationship in which they see you as being “in their corner” and as a base to which they can always return when they need support. Having this secure relationship is one of the strongest factors in helping your children to become resilient, responsible, and caring people who are open to your love and your guidance."-Center for Parenting Education

We will draw on strategies from Adele Faber and Elaine Mazlish's How To Talk So Kids Will Listen and Listen So Kids Will Talk, as well as current research on the topic.

This class is geared toward parents of preschoolers and early elementary school students, but the skills will carry you through High School and can be applied to any age-group (even co-workers!)

The Importance of Nature and Sensory Play
Early Childhood Matters’ founder and director, Rebecca Walsh, will discuss the importance of nature and sensory play, focusing on strategies and engagement for children ages 18-36 months.

Rebecca will provide calming strategies, working with the brain’s receptors (Proprioceptive,Vestibular, etc.) and give examples of sensory activities to calm your child.

Strategies Discussed:

· Honoring the impulse instead of just saying no

· Engaging the child in the process when you need their cooperation through making it fun,

turning it into a game, breaking down and describing each step of the process

· Identifying the feeling or desire, especially during a tantrum, screaming, etc or when hitting

· Stopping the behavior before it starts/becomes a pattern

Other Major Concepts:

· Finding the middle ground between too permissive (too much freedom) and too Authoritarian

(too little freedom)

· Middle ground is authoritative parenting (flexible with feelings, firm with behavior or freedom

with limits)

· Safety and self care as guidelines for setting limits

· Preventative strategies like changing the environment, having routines, practicing floor time,

I love you rituals, and self-care for parents.

Responsive Caregiving: Nurturing Curious, Connected Children from Zero to Three

The first three years of life are when your child's most dramatic brain development occurs. During these early years, parents have the amazing opportunity to nurture their child’s growth and development through connected, responsive caregiving. Join Rebecca Walsh of Early Childhood Matters and learn more about your child's rapidly developing brain, developmental milestones in early childhood, and positive parenting approaches to navigate challenging toddler behaviors.

Topics will include:

· Responsive caregiving: how to create opportunities for bonding, learning, and growth through

everyday caregiving tasks

· The value of routines and rituals for young children, and ideas for implementing them in your

family’s daily routine

· Using floortime and parental engagement strategies to develop the limbic brain and reduce

challenging behaviors

Other Positive Discipline Classes/Topics (each topic is a 1.5 hour class):

- Staying calm during times of conflict. Helping children and parents to use non-violent

communication, "I feel___________ when__________" language at home.

- Strategies from "How to talk so children will listen and listen so children will talk" by

Adele Faber and Elaine Mazlisch

- Sensory integration and other tools to build up self-regulation toolkit

- Calm down area ideas

- Helping children communicate their feelings

• Ooey Gooey and other sensory ideas (discovery bottles, etc)

• Strategies to avoiding parental burnout as we rev up for a new school year.

• Building resiliency, coping skills and "disappointment muscles" through setting healthy limits in a healthy way.

• Helping children with sibling, cousin or playmate rivalry part ll

• How to change habits, yell less and connect more!

  We can also tailor workshops for your group!

Teacher TRAINING WORKSHOP EXAmples

Workshop 1: Teaching Young Children Through the Lens of Developmental Milestones 

“Image of the Child” as once described the first head of Reggio Emilia’s early childhood centers Lours Maliguzzi is in “contrast to some other common images of the child as lacking, passive, acted upon, or following a predetermined path set out by adults and/or innate development. The ‘rich’ child is an active learner, seeking the meaning of the world from birth, a co-creator of knowledge, identity, culture, and values.” 

How do we use what we know about the developmental milestones and paths of children to further unlock this potential in the children in our care? How do we teach to the child instead of asking the child to come up to the teacher’s thinking and understanding? This workshop will explore developmental milestones for 2’s, 3’s, 4’s and 5’s and help us think about how to honor each stage of the child’s development as we set developmentally appropriate expectations for learning and behavior. The more we understand the child, the more we see the child as having agency in their learning, thinking and understanding of the world. After groupwide learning about the differences between each stage, break out groups would be created to discuss and roll play scenarios and strategies for each age group. 

 Follow-up check-ins (optional):

1 hour follow-ups with the staff at each site to discuss, answer questions, and reflect on how this workshop has informed or inspired teaching practices 

Workshop 2: Preparing for Spring’s Tricky/Challenging Behaviors

This workshop invites teachers to reflect on how to effectively set clear limits and have consistent expectations, in the context of a connected, not corrective, classroom. We will discuss how to set up the classroom to work for your children, as they grow and develop, We will examine the importance of connecting, listening to, and understanding the child, in order to overcome challenging behaviors exhibited by toddlers and preschoolers. We will discuss floor time, greeting and departure rituals, and connection through conversations. Teachers will have an opportunity to submit challenging strategies that they would like support on, and small group sessions will be created to practice strategies.

Follow-up check in: 1-hour follow-ups with the staff at each site to discuss, answer questions, and reflect on how our August and Feb workshop has informed or inspired teaching practices

Pricing:

3hr workshops: $1500 each

1hr follow-up check-ins (optional): $350 each

OTHER OFFERINGS:

Positive Discipline in the Classroom

-Strategies for conflict resolution, learning to share and problem solving

-Developmental expectations and applications with 2, 3, and 4s

Establishing Routines and Classroom Expectations

-Class meetings and other strategies for getting children involved and invested in creating and

following rules and expectations

-Problem solving when children test these rules and limits

The Connected Teacher: Reducing challenging behavior through responsive caregiving

-Connected caregiving routines,

-1:1 Floor time, I Love You Rituals, Greeting and Departure Rituals

-Strategies for easing separation anxiety

Environment and Viewing Challenging Behaviors through a Sensory Integration Perspective

-Understanding Sensory Integration and Zones of Regulation-

-Tools to help children self-regulate

-Setting up your environment, materials, and activities to help children regulate

Email info@earlychildhoodmatters.org to find out how we can help your school.