Parenting Evening at Springside Chestnut Hill Academy with Dr. Michael Thompson

Springside Chestnut Hill Academy invites you to join us for the second lecture in our 2012 spring "FutureReady" parenting lecture series.

"Best Friends/Worst Enemies: Friendship Development, Popularity and Social Cruelty in Childhood"

Michael G. Thompson, Ph.D. is a psychologist, school consultant, and author or co-author of eight books, including the New York Times bestseller, Raising Cain: Protecting the Emotional Life of Boys; Best Friends, Worst Enemies: Understanding the Social Lives of Children; and The Pressured Child: Freeing our Kids from Performance Overdrive and Helping Them Find Success in School and Life. A dedicated speaker and traveler, Dr. Thompson has spoken at or consulted to more than 500 schools in the U.S. and abroad. He has appeared on the Today Show, Oprah, ABC 20/20, and CBS 60 Minutes and was the co-author, host, and narrator of a two-hour PBS documentary.

Dr. Thompson's presentation walks parents through the complex social world of childhood and addresses a number of questions:  

 - What do social relationships in school predict about happiness in adult life?  

- What is the normal sequence of child friendships, from the parallel play of the two-year-old to the intimate self-disclosure of the adolescent?  

- Why do cliques form and what are the differences between boy and girl groups?  

- Why are children scapegoated and how can their parents protect them?  Dr. Thompson will draw on research to highlight the differences between friendship and popularity.