Over the years one of our most popular parenting talks has been SETTING LIMITS & BOUNDARIES: HOW TO SAY “NO” TO YOUR KIDS. Audiences seemed to identify with the message of the need and difficulty of staying firm. When we act out the skit about a son being late for his spaghetti dinner, parents recognize the challenge of holding to the arranged agreement in the face of escalating responses designed to change parents’ minds.

We embarked on a new journey several years ago to turn this popular presentation into a video for parents so they could review the concepts of staying firm at their leisure. Knowing nothing about this process we enlisted Tom Lieberman (who has gone on to producing the popular movie SWEET LAND) to direct our first video product, SETTING LIMITS & BOUNDARIES: HOW TO SAY “NO” TO YOUR KIDS. The VHS and DVD versions of this video has been warmly received by parents and positively reviewed by publications such as BOOKLIST, LIBRARY JOURNAL and VIDEO LIBRARIAN.

Now we’re beginning the next leg of this journey: on-line training. In conjunction with www.learningindemand.com we have completed converting this parent training video into a parent training web course. Parents can sign up to take this course on-line and receive a certificate of completion after completing the various sessions. We think it’s a wonderful way to bring this important message to parents and those who work with parents.

Jeff and I have been working together since we taught at the same elementary school. We realized that we both had an interest in presenting our ideas and experiences to interested parents and ChildSense was born. Over two decades later we have expanded our interests to include educators. We have had the opportunity to present to groups of people all over the country. Several years ago we tried to turn some of our material into a book but realized that our strengths seemed to be in live presentations rather than the written word. From that realization we began working on creating a video for parents on the topic of setting limits for children, one of our more popular presentations. Building on the positive reviews and success of that project we began working on our next project, a video kit for teachers. We now have expanded ChildSense to include these several products, a website, this blog while continuing to offer seminars and other presentations to parents and educators across the country. Watch this space for more postings from and about ChildSense. Please let us know what you think of it and what you would like to see here.

Jon Halpern, co-founder of ChildSense, has worked in the fields of psychology and education for as long as he can remember. As a product of Minneapolis public schools, he began working for the Mpls. Park Board and tutored children while in high school. Professionally he served as a psychometrist for the Washburn Child Guidance Center (where he met his wife, Sally), an intern for Park-Nicollet Mental Health department, and a consultant for Community Intervention, Inc. Jon was also an elementary school teacher for 15 years in public and private schools and currently serves as the Lower School Counselor for The Blake School. He is also an adjunct faculty member at Hamline and Saint Mary’s Universities. Jon is extremely proud of his two grown children who have begun their careers in similar helping professions.

Jeff Fink, the other co-founder of ChildSense, has a passion for travel. His most interesting travels have taken him to the Philippines, the birth place of his wife, Alex. Jeff has been an educator for over 30 years. He has served as a regular and special education teacher as well as a Behavioral Consultant. Jeff currently teaches courses and supervises student teachers at Hamline University in Saint Paul, Minnesota. He has written a manual which was published by Diane Gossen. He also provides seminars and produces videos for parents and educators with Jon Halpern through ChildSense. He is looking forward to sharing his thoughts with you through a blog.