Madeline Levine, PhD
with
Than Healy
BUILDING RESILIENCE:
Preparing our Teens to Thrive in Uncertain Times
Tues, Dec 7; 7pm-8:15pm PT
Free for member school parents and for educators from member and non-member schools. Registration closes two hours before the start of this event or when maximum registration is reached.
Our teens are coming of age in a highly uncertain world: a lingering global pandemic, rapid technological advances, climate and political upheaval – all which signal future uncertainty. By focusing primarily on grades and performance, parents are leaving kids ill-prepared to navigate the challenges and complexities to come. Dr. Levine, a clinical psychologist with 40 years of experience, identifies the skills that kids need to succeed in a complex future: adaptability, mental agility, curiosity, collaboration, tolerance for failure, resilience, and optimism. Relying on the latest research and developments in neuroscience and epigenetics (the intersection of genetics and environment), Dr.Levine will discuss day-to-day solutions parents can use to raise kids who are prepared, enthusiastic, and ready to face an unpredictable future with confidence and optimism. Dr. Levine will be in conversation with Menlo Head of School, Than Healy.
About Our Speakers
Madeline Levine, Ph.D. is a psychologist with close to 40 years of experience as a clinician, consultant, educator and author. Her New York Times bestseller, The Price of Privilege, explores the reasons why teenagers from affluent families are experiencing epidemic rates of emotional problems. Her follow up book, Teach Your Children Well, also a New York Times bestseller, tackles our current narrow definition of success – how it unnecessarily stresses academically talented kids and marginalizes many more whose talents and interests are less amenable to measurement. Her current book, Ready or Not, focuses on how to best prepare our children and ourselves for an uncertain and rapidly changing world.
She co-founded Challenge Success, a project at Stanford's Graduate School of Education, that believes our increasingly competitive world has led to tremendous anxiety about our children’s futures and has resulted in a high pressure, myopic focus on grades, test scores and performance. This kind of pressure and narrow focus isn’t helping our kids become the resilient, capable, meaningful contributors we need in the 21st century. Challenge Success provides families and schools with the practical research-based tools they need to raise healthy, motivated kids, capable of reaching their full potential.
Dr. Levine graduated Phi Beta Kappa from the State University of New York at Buffalo with a B.A. in English and an M.A. in Education. She then moved to California and earned her M.A. and Ph.D. in psychology. She has had a large clinical practice with an emphasis on child and adolescent problems and parenting issues, and has taught Child Development classes to graduate students at the University of California San Francisco Medical Center. Dr. Levine has been a consultant to various schools, from preschool through high school, public as well as private, throughout the country and is also a highly sought after lecturer and keynote speaker for parents, educators and business leaders both nationally and internationally.
Than Healy, Head of School, Menlo School
Than Healy graduated from Williams College, and started his career in education teaching history and psychology, coaching and leading residential life at the Stevenson School in Pebble Beach, CA. Following a yearlong hiatus from education to play professional basketball in Frankfurt, Germany, he returned to teach at his alma mater, Punahou School in Honolulu, where he continued to coach, teach and lead.
After a year of graduate studies in New York City, Than worked at the Lakeside School in Seattle, WA from 2001-2013, serving as the Upper School Director and Assistant Head of School before coming to Menlo School. Outside of his professional life, Than proudly serves on multiple nonprofit boards.