Helping Kids Deal with Disappointment During COVID-19 Social Distancing
(KGW, April 2020)
A parenting expert offers tips for parents on how to help kids cope with social distancing and isolation.
OSU Parenting Experts Offer Advice for Families Under Quarantine
(Synergies, March 2020)
Raising a Healthy Generation Begins with Developing Knowledgeable Parents
(Synergies, August 2019)
Statewide parenting education model is unique in the nation. Learn more about the Oregon Parenting Education Collaborative.
New Book Advises Parents on Creating Compassionate Kids
(KGW-TV, January 2019)
Author Shauna Tominey describes essential conversations to have with young children.
Committed to Compassion: New Book Provides Tools for Parents and Caregivers Who Aim to Raise Compassionate Kids
(Synergies, January 2019)
As they grow and change and learn about the world around them, kids are full of questions. Those questions aren’t always easy for their parents or the other adults within their lives to answer. But the conversations around those questions can play a vital role in helping children develop compassion. In her new book, Oregon State’s Shauna Tominey offers parents, caregivers and other adults who work with young children tips and tools for navigating those important and sometimes difficult conversations about everything from learning and making mistakes to love, relationships and divorce to race, sex and gender.
Five Ways to Nurture Compassion in Kids (MindShift, January 2019)
There are many stories about people who have made a difference that come from individuals or groups that have experienced hardship as they strive to overcome those hardships. For your child, this might be what inspires them to action, but it doesn’t have to be. Everyone has the potential to make a difference in their own way.
The Psychological Effects of Being Separated from Your Child (New York Magazine, June 2018)
While there’s plenty of research out there on how children are affected when they’re separated from their parents, studies from the other side — looking at the effects on the parents — are limited, says Shauna Tominey, a parenting researcher at Oregon State University, and tend to focus on separations that happen as a result of divorce, incarceration, or military deployment. What we do know, though, is that in those cases, parents and children alike can more easily cope with being apart “when there is some level of predictability, some sense of routines or patterns or new creation of routines or patterns,” says Tominey. “When the separation is sudden, unexpected, and forceful,” she adds, “none of that is true.”
Inside the Mind of Researcher Shauna Tominey
“I’ve had the opportunity to live in different states and to get to know families in many different contexts. In all of the places I lived, I saw the same shared value – parents and caregivers who want their children to thrive. What I came to realize was that despite that shared value, families are not given the same chance at success.”
Online Course Addresses Early Childhood Success: New Course Helps Teachers, Parents Teach Self-Regulation Skills (Synergies, June 2018)
“The games in this intervention come from traditional children’s games, but each with a twist to focus on the self-regulation pieces that help children practice and hone in on those skills,” says Shauna Tominey, assistant professor of practice and parenting education specialist. Shauna says one goal of the Red Light, Purple Light Intervention is to get children to a point where they can stop and make a choice, rather than act on impulse.
New Paltz Forum Focuses on Emotional Intelligence (Hudson Valley One, November, 2016)
“Emotions Matter: Creating More Compassionate Schools and Communities Through Emotional Intelligence,” was facilitated by Shauna Tominey and Kathryn Lee of the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence. The evening offered the opportunity for teens and their parents to learn about the role of emotional intelligence in youth culture, education and family life, and develop strategies for dealing with stress.
The Most Needed School Supply Everyone can Bring: Empathy (Huffington Post, August 2016)
Lori Nathanson, Ph.D., and Shauna Tominey, Ph.D., both of The Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence, conducted a study on 5th grade students nearing the end of their elementary career. The study shed light on the concept of widespread, mutual anxiety, and feelings of being “the only one,” despite heaps of literature and media outlets that portray back-to-school season as a happy, positive time of new supplies and fresh starts. Drs. Nathanson and Tominey began their study, the “Commitment to Care” social experiment with the hypothesis that if students were given the space to talk about their emotions, and the tools to share and show empathy, then the students would feel less alone and more confident about entering middle school. They were absolutely right.