With a number of presenters on deck, the first session began approximately 10:10 a.m. with Mrs. Chalanie Stiebel Lawton, who presented on the topic ‘Child Lifestyle, Health and Mental Wellness from Toddler Years to the Teen’. Immediately after, Dr. Georgia Rose discussed the ‘TRUEly PAWsitive Influence of Pets on Children’. Rose noted that pet therapy is a great way to assist children in controlling their emotions.
“You have to find out the personality of a child and their emotive needs, and let’s also be fair, what the needs of the pets are, because if you have a pet that is very low energy, very mellow, doesn’t like to be bothered, and you have a very high-energy child, that may not be a good mix,” she said.
The next presentation was from Mrs. Diahann Gordon Harrison of the Office of the Children’s Advocate, who was presented virtually. Mrs. Harrison's discussion entailed ‘What Every Parent Needs to Know about Sexual Grooming’, and was followed up with an interactive game that her representative, Anna-Maria Dawkins-Johnson spearheaded.
“This is an excellent avenue for us to support our parents in understanding what the rights of our children are and what their needs may be. We want parents to really focus on our anti-sexual grooming campaign. It is important for them to understand that the groomer can be anyone- a friend, a stranger online, in fact sometimes it happens right under the parents’ nose. So it's imperative that they are aware of the signs their child is being groomed, and what to do when they suspect this is happening,” shared Dawkins-Johnson.
Sonia Wynter then delved into her “Anger Management & Conflict Resolution” session, providing useful tips on how parents can skillfully navigate disagreements within the home, which teaches their children how to deal with conflicts outside of the home.
For many parents, sending their children to college without having to worry about where the tuition fees are going to come from, is a dream. A number of the parents in attendance shared the experience of having to make huge sacrifices in order to provide a tertiary education for their children. PROVEN’S Senior Private Client Advisor and Associate Agency Director, Imara Pinock and Glena Traille-Nassor, both took to the platform to discuss the various options that PROVEN, through the acquisition of Heritage Education Funds International, now provides for tertiary students. To this, Michelle Gordon, Parenting Consultant & Executive Producer of Island Child Style, expressed that “because of Heritage’s savings & scholarship plans, I was able to send my son off to college three months ago, without any worries. Had I not been thinking ahead 18 years ago, I probably would not have been able to do that.”
Single parents were not left out of the discussion, as Jehan White, Clinical Psychologist at Tea House Therapy, spoke on “Balancing Hearts and Homes: Single Parents & Dating”. Through this discussion, it became clear that many single parents refuse to date, solely because they are unsure of how their child will react. However, White reassured the audience that, “while you have to be cautious with who you bring around, it is important for children to know what healthy love looks like, so that when they become adults, they will have that knowledge.”
The final presentation of the day was done by Rochelle Cameron, Attorney- at-Law, broaching the topic “Balancing Parenting and Personal Ambitions”. Whilst using pieces of her life story as the foundation of her presentation, Cameron ensured that her audience remembered that “Parents matter. No matter what is going on in life, it is important to take some time to ourselves so that we aren’t pouring from an empty cup.”
The day’s event was closed out with a video from the Island Child Style organizers, inviting the audience to ‘Meet Me on the Runway’ on December 2, 2023, for the 5th staging of the Island Child Style fashion runway show.
