[Spring Summit] New Horizons in Father Engagement
March 19 @ 12:30 pm - 2:00 pm
FreeWhat to Do with Dad After You Have His Attention. Now that paternal involvement in the lives of children has been flagged as important to both child and family well-being, many questions arise about how the nurturing world is to make room for father’s contributions, given that 1) those contributions differ from mother’s, and 2) child-centered systems (including the family, educational, and healthcare) aren’t currently shaped to easily integrate his contributions. Co-parenting no longer uniquely references parenting after divorce, serving instead as the marquis for the next phase of the real-world of paternal engagement—how parents tag team to raise their children across time, or not. Research and public policy are woven together with clinical realities of the diverse world of paternal and grandparental engagement where non-traditional arrangements expand almost daily. Advice is tendered throughout, ending with the signature audience-engaging Q&A of Kyle Pruett presentations.
Kyle D. Pruett, M.D., a Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at both the Child study Center and the School of Nursing at the Yale School of Medicine, conducted the country’s only long-term study of the impact on children of primary caretaking fathers. Author of several award-winning books, he also writes a blog for Psychology Today called “Once Upon a Child.” He hosted his own Lifetime Television series, Your Child Six to Twelve with Dr. Kyle Pruett, and was chosen by Oprah Winfrey to host her award-winning video, Begin With Love., and by Peter Jennings to appear with him on the Children’s Town Meetings after 9-11.
Dr. Pruett appears frequently in the New York Times, on National Public Radio and Television. An acclaimed speaker and teacher, he has addressed the National Press Club, educated judges, lawyers, business leaders and physicians in many states and countries, and advised dozens of legislators and policy makers at the state and national level. He is past president of Zero to Three: The National Center for Infants, Toddlers and their Families, and a past member of the Sesame Workshop Board of Directors. Dr. Pruett is featured in the award-winning Zero to Three Podcast series “Little Kids, Big Questions,” the Goddard Schools ‘Parenting in Five” and the Johnson and Johnson video.
Educated in Indiana public schools, and Yale and Tufts Universities, he has served as a forensic consultant on child, parental and family development, paternal involvement, children’s mental health, creativity, and the effects of media, trauma, and divorce on children. He was Visiting Professor at University of Calgary, Alberta, Canada. Dr. Pruett co-founder of the Early Childhood Peace Consortium at Yale and the United Nations with recent presentations in Istanbul, Marrakech, Florence, and the UN/UNICEF in New York. He served as early childhood consultant to the Salama bint Hamdan Foundation, Abu Dhabi, UAE. A member of the Performing Arts Medicine Association, Dr. Pruett is also a gifted musician and regularly performs as a soloist in opera, oratorio and vocal chamber music. He is father to three daughters and one son, grandfather of four, and is married to Dr. Marsha Kline Pruett, the Maconda Brown Professor of Psychology and Social Work at Smith College.
