When I decluttered our home library a few weeks ago, I found this “classic” LP or long-playing album. This, according to one of my children, was the CD back in the day.

We used to have a lot of these LP on my father’s stereo stand. I even remember sets that my mom ordered from Reader’s Digest. Just this week, Twitter conversation with friends was about stereos and LPs.

I distinctly remember that unique sound that stereos and their needles make before the music is played. How wonderful it was back then to enjoy music being played. (maybe because you paid for the LPs (and cassettes too)

Being a parent is not something that is easy. In fact, in the course of studying for a career, parenting was not a part of any curriculum that we know of.

So how do new (and even experienced) parents do when they are faced with challenges? Learn from the experts.

Parents learn from the experts: from their own parents, from friends who are parents, advices from friends, doctors and also from parenting experts. Yes, parenting experts readily share their first-hand knowledge and experiences in how parents can do a better job at being parents.

In line with this, the country’s top parenting, relationship and education experts teamed up for Family Congress 2012. Family Congress 2012 will be on August 25, 2012.

Parenting and relationship expert Maribel S. Dionisio partnered with PR and events organizer Fides Reyes and Rowie Matti, CEO of Galileo Enrichment Learning Program in organizing a family congress. The friends want to help educate other families about relationship and love which aims to help other parents to be better at parenting.

DETAILS of the topics in Family Congress 2012

The Family Congress 2012 has a variety of topics that different age groups (parents, teens and singles) would find helpful:

• PARENTS who want to: improve on their methods or styles of bringing up their children; know the value of and modern technology and how they can manage it, learn more about bullies – managing and preventing this

•  COUPLES who wish to nurture, maintain, or improve their relationship.

• TEENS and YOUNG ADULTS who are confused with their emotions and want to learn more about relationships – Crushes, Sex , Dating and Love

“Our vision is to equip every individual with the knowledge and skills they need for their particular relationship stage,” express the organizers. Thus, congress attendees can choose one session in the morning and another session in the afternoon from among 10 varied and very interesting topics:

Morning sessions:
1A – Migrating and Managing the Digital World by Queena Lee-Chua, Ph.D.
2A – Handling the Bully and the Bullied by Honey Carandang, Ph.D.
3A – Built for Forever: Preparing Singles for a Lifetime Relationship by Rissa Singson-Kawpeng
4A – Teen Talk about Love, Sex, and Dating by Dan and Nabelle Caballes
5A- From Wellness to Wholeness (for adults 21 & up) by Harriet Hormillosa, M.A.

Afternoon sessions:
6P – Being Friends Forever in Marriage: Learning the Art of Fighting by Allan Dionisio, M.D. & Maribel Dionisio, M.A.
7P – Teaching Parents to Talk to Kids & Teens about Crushes, Sex & Relationship by Michele Alignay, M.A. & Aiza Tabayoyong
8P – Managing Teen Emotions by Obet Cabrillas
9P – Career, Relationship, and Life Plan for Singles by Pia Nazareno-Acevedo
10P – Beyond the Tears: Griefwork by Cathy Babao-Guballa

Participants will also get to listen to Archbishop Luis Antonio Tagle and motivational speaker Francis Kong.

The Family Congress’ mission is to provide a venue for learning by gathering the best experts in the field of psychology, parenting, and relationship to share their knowledge to family members, educators, and organizations in the most effective and simplest way.

The Family Congress 2012 will be held on August 25, 2012 from 8AM to 5PM at the Valle Verde Country Club, Pasig City. It is presented by The Love Institute in partnership with Galileo Enrichment Learning Program and F.I.D. Event Services.

RATES:

Early bird rates are: P1300 if you register before April 30; P1400 if you register before June 30. Regular rate is P1500 per attendee.

Promo rate: 6+1 (pay for 6, get 1 free based on regular rate).

Registration fee is inclusive of seminar fee, meals, and lots of freebies.
For more information, please call 579-0100, 0917-8972903, 0922-2521896, email familycongress@gmail.com, follow them on twitter.com/FamCong2012 and like facebook.com/FamilyCongress.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

SPEAKERS:
DR. QUEENA N. LEE-CHUA

DR. MA. LOURDES “HONEY” A. CARANDANG,

RISSA SINGSON-KAWPENG

DAN & NABELLE CABALLES

HARRIET HORMILLOSA

MA. ISABEL “Maribel” O. SISON DIONISIO

MICHELE SANTOS-ALIGNAY

AIZA CAPARAS-TABAYOYONG

OBET CABRILLAS

PIA NAZARENO-ACEVEDO

CATHY BABAO-GUBALL

FRANCIS J. KONG

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS:
Family Congress would like to thank the following sponsors for making the bloggers gathering, “Meet the Family” possible:

Fully Booked
- for co-advocating with us by allowing us to use the venue for FREE.

Bo’s Coffee
Taters
- for providing our snacks and drinks, mana from heaven!

Mommy Mundo
Binalot
- for the generous freebies

If you are a college student who has a great idea on health and wellness that will help transform communities, then Unilab Ideas Positive is for you!

Unilab Ideas Positive believes in the youth’s ideas that will make positive difference to the communities they have in mind. Unilab Ideas Positive is a social marketing clinic and competition that gives the youth a place where they can share innovative and sustainable ideas concerning the health and wellness of their communities of choice. These ideas are given the chance and platform to be a reality.

How can Unilab help the youth make their health and wellness ideas in Unilab Ideas Positive as concrete programs that will help communities?

• 3 day marketing boot camp to learn from experts the current social marketing approaches and relevant case studies
• seed money for the implementation of their program which will run for six months

College students from North Luzon, South Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao can now join 2012 Unilab Ideas Positive. More communities will now benefit from the health and wellness programs the youth have as ideas because fifteen, yes, 15 teams will each be given Php100,000 seed money from Unilab Foundation for the implementation of these social marketing programs. This means a total of Php1.5 million seed money will be for these health and wellness programs.

This is an opportunity to give back to communities and help them be healthier through these health and wellness programs. Healthier people means healthier nation.

Now on its third year, Unilab Ideas Positive gets even better with a focus not only on positive ideas, but also on positive outcomes—creating a difference where it matters, in partnership with the Filipino youth.

We all want a healthier nation, right? Start sharing your idea by visiting www.unilabideaspositive.com

Children are drawn to horses and they would love to try riding on one or even riding in a calesa being pulled by a horse. There is something about horses and children that just click and it is not just a phase they go through because if this phase was encouraged, I’m sure these children will even grow to love the sports connected with horses.

According to Franklin Levinson, an authority in natural horsemanship training:

Horses, being naturally social and inclined to appropriate interaction with whoever is with them, are a perfect manifestation of nature for children to interact with, become empowered by and have an experience that expands their world immensely.

My children are no exception. When the nearby city park still had horses for horseback riding, we used to bring my then only child eldest daughter to experience riding on horses. We seriously considered enrolling her in horseback riding lessons but we didn’t have horse equipment.

I got some photos of them on a horse (but I think it’s in the EHD already) and they said they can’t wait to be on one soon. I hope we can grant their wish to ride on a horse again soon.

My son is required to email our family photo to his drama club coach for their play “The Cat Painter“.

He told me he had an idea about how we can do the photo shoot: we sit all together on the sofa with him in the middle holding the guitar we got them for them last Christmas. It’s not ibanez acoustic guitars yet but maybe when they can play better…

Last night the hubby had them listen to Trios Los Panchos, which was a group my late FIL listened to.

“La Cucaracha… La Cucaracha…”

We will be doing this photo shoot later using his idea.

How was your 2011?

I want to do a bit of introspection for the year that was 2011. I know, there are still a few days left before we finally say goodbye to 2011 and this seems something that looks like “forced” and too early.

• 2011 was a busy year with even more focus on the children’s needs and activities as well as more focus on my students whose needs are developing too.

• 2011 was a challenging year especially since the family has to deal with more pressing concerns in different aspects of our lives.

• 2011 was like a myriad of emotions when it comes to how we reacted to the different local and world events as they unfold

• 2011 was and still is a year I have to deal with health issues plaguing the family members but we try our best to stay healthy by choosing healthier food choices and getting rid of or avoiding things/events that bring a lot of stress

• 2011 made me realize I can do so much more if only I put more effort into what I know I can do best

Are you looking forward to doing more improvements to your life and meeting more challenges in 2012?