Maureen Healy

Educator & Best-Selling Author of The Emotionally Healthy Child

Maureen Healy

Educator & Best-Selling Author of The Emotionally Healthy Child

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Biography

Maureen Healy is an award-winning author, sought-after speaker, and expert in the world of children’s emotional health and education. Tal Ben-Shahar said, “Maureen has provided an important antidote to the difficult times that so many of our kids are going through these days” while describing Maureen’s new book: The Happiness Workbook for Kids (PESI, 2022). Prior books include: The Emotionally Healthy Child (New World Library, 2018) with a preface from the Dalai Lama, and Growing Happy Kids (HCI Books, 2012), along with a popular blog on Psychology Today’s website.

Unique to Maureen is her global experience working with parents and their children from the rural mountains of Mexico to upper Manhattan. Her work has been seen across all media platforms including The New York Times, Fortune, PBS, Scholastic magazine, and AOL’s streaming services, as well as NBC, ABC, and CW. Her ability to distill complex ideas into simple, proven strategies to create more emotional health and well-being at home, as well as the classroom has been noticed. The Dalai Lama said, “I hope Maureen’s book, The Emotionally Healthy Child, can contribute to more wholesome education for future generations.”

With two decades of experience, Maureen has helped countless parents and children through teaching and school development. She’s taught from kindergarten to the college level, volunteered in Asia and worked with Tibetan refugee children in 2007. Her traditional educational credentials include a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology and Master of Business Administration (MBA) from Clark University and a PhD program in Clinical Psychology at Fielding Graduate University in Santa Barbara, California. Maureen has also studied with scholars and scientists globally on the science of childhood happiness, which has bolstered her joy immensely.

Invite Maureen to your school, organization, or conference to engage and inspire them with ideas, as well as evidence-based strategies of resilience, emotional well-being and wellness. She also delivers keynotes worldwide (virtually and in-person).

Speaker Videos

Dealing with Anger

The Emotionally Healthy Child

Emotional Development

How to Raise Happier Children

Raising an Emotionally Healthy Children

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Speech Topics

Using AI in Our Stressful World

Being able to leverage AI in the classroom to boost student engagement and learning can be a tremendous benefit. However, this advancement is only helpful if we equip our students with the capabilities to critically think, and ask questions, which support their academic and social advancement versus becoming a crutch to real learning.

Invite Maureen to your community to build your:

AI literacy (as a teacher, professional, parent)
Spot the “red flags” of AI misuse
Teach students how to engage with AI, as well as build their skills of critical thinking and inquiry (specific strategies and best practices shared)
Understand the currency of character and authentic connections in the age of AI, as well as how it supports resiliency

Envisioning a future with AI and the bumpers we need to put in place with students to keep them safe is of the utmost importance. Maureen has crafted policies for schools, provided training, and empowered adults, as well as students in how to engage with AI to enhance education, engagement and learning.

The Wheel of Well-Being

Science shows what boosts student well-being, as well as what reduces it immediately. Invite Maureen to learn the latest on how to foster well-being in your learning spaces and community, especially during the different ages and stages of development.

Maureen expertly shares what the evidence-based wheel of well-being is, and how it applies to students, parents and teachers, as well as communities.

Audience takeaways:

Understand the “spokes of the well-being wheel” for children and how to inflate each one, as well as repair flats when they happen.
Discover the latest science of well-being, especially related to elementary and middle school students, as well as how technology supports and/or harms well-being (research from neuroscience, behavioral economics, psychology, as examples).
Add (and subtract) strategies from your well-being toolbox as a teacher, parent and professional aimed to help nurture your student’s well-being for a lasting impact. (Classroom and home tools shared).

Engage with Maureen to sharpen how you systematically build well-being into your classrooms, schools and parent/teacher enrichment programming. Despite our world being full of uncertainty and stress, we are also equipped with science-based tools to foster well-being even in the hardest times.

Building Resilience: The Art & Science of Bouncing Back

Students have challenges – whether academic or social, which will need to be faced and with support they can learn to develop a resilient mindset and strategies to strengthen and repair their resiliency when life throws obstacles at them.

Audience takeaways:

Understand the big picture of childhood resilience from a scientific perspective – and what you can do.
Strategies shared to help teachers and parents build, strengthen and repair student resilience, especially in our high-tech world. (AI and technology discussed too).
Reframe resilience as a skill, which can be developed. It is not the result of great genes, but certain segments of the population tend to demonstrate higher resiliency – on average.
Connect the dots between resilience, emotional stability, well-being, and ultimately, flourishing.

Maureen has written a science-based K-8 resiliency curriculum, which has been adopted by different learning institutions and supported to help students systematically build, repair and strengthen resilience especially in today’s distracted, stressful and anxious world.

The Emotionally Healthy Child: Emotional Intelligence

Understanding children’s emotional health and how to help children build emotional regulation and self-awareness is the focus of this program. Participants re-engage with SEL and receive advanced tools to nurture emotional health in themselves, as well as their students and families.

Audience takeaways:

Clear definition of children’s emotional health.
Receive the “7 Essential Lessons” of how emotions work, and a plethora of activities to use in K-8 classroom.
Science-backed tools that helped children foster emotional intelligence even in the toughest of times. Self-reflection scripts shared too.
Receive special training to build EQ in different populations, especially neurodivergent and special education students.

Invite Maureen to deepen your understanding on how to impart and nurture emotional and social intelligence with today’s students, especially in the age of AI, anxiety and distraction. No questions are off-limits, and Maureen happily engages with all participants.

Helping Children Become Happier

Our world has become increasingly stressed, uncertain and unhappy for people, including many children. Being able to step back and plant the proven seeds of happier life experiences in children not only helps them today, but guides them with agency on how to create happier life experiences in whatever situation they’re presented with. They can learn to bounce back from life’s difficulties and become happier step-by-step.

Audience takeaways:

Ideas and science-backed activities to foster happier life experiences.
Insight into the practical wisdom that helps students develop the mindset, as well as the habits that produce happier life experiences.
Clear interventions for students who present pessimistically the majority of the time, as well as perfectionistic and anxious students, as examples.
Micro-habits to integrate into your classroom or home that can bolster well-being.

Invite Maureen to deepen your understanding of the complexity and components of childhood happiness, as well as what we can do in the classroom or home, which can boost children’s well-being.

Testimonials

"Maureen was knowledgeable and able to connect with our audience. She did a great job with managing the adjustments prior to and during the event in order to make it a success. Would definitely look to schedule her again!"

- Senior Manager, Deloitte

"Maureen was FABULOUS! Our parents really enjoyed her and were very engaged! ….thank you so much for your assistance throughout this process!"

- Workforce Solutions Rural Capital Area

"Thank you for presenting. We appreciate you taking the time to share your knowledge, experience, and expertise with our extensive network of behavioral health professionals. Participants overwhelmingly reported that your presentation was relevant to their work and that they are likely to implement what they learned during your training. Thanks again for your partnership and your contributions to the field."

- Community Mental Health Board of Oak Park Township

"As part of our on-going efforts to help teens, we brought Maureen in to share about the teenage brain and our educators loved her! She provided real-life strategies and facilitated a meaningful discussion for our organization about how to help our teenagers. We are better for having her come visit."

- Diane Solomon, Baltimore, MD

"We are so happy. I'm getting lots of emails from parents and people in the community that loved your talk! You really did a great job and I'm so glad we brought you to speak at our Early Childhood Education Symposium."

- The Summit Country Day School in Cincinnati, Ohio

"The event was a success! We had over 400 parents attend, we gave away 300 books and Maureen stayed to sign them. The audience feedback that I received was really positive. Our parents loved her."

- Walnut Valley

"Maureen Healy is an engaging and exceptional speaker. She made us laugh and learn about how to help a child develop self-control, and the ability to make better choices with their emotions. Many of our teachers and parents thanked me profusely afterwards as this is what they needed."

- Dean of Garden Street Academy

"Maureen's talk was very well received. Our parents are required to attend professional development, and even reluctant parents said they got really useful ideas from her talk. Thank you!"

- The Parents Oak Workshop

- Jewish Teen Educators

"I have heard her on the stage and in the classroom. She is an inspiration to listen to."

- Former Director of Gross National Happiness for Bhutan

“Maureen shared her thoughtful perspective and practical tools for parents and kids to use. Through a combination of presenting and answering questions, parents walked away with resources, information and hope! Her style was both respectful and light so that folks felt comfortable asking about sensitive issues their kids were dealing with. I would highly recommend her as a speaker.”

- Kim Crail, Senior Technician

"I was delighted to have Maureen speak at the World Happiness Summit in Miami, Florida, where she delighted the audience of 5,000+ people."

- Luis Gallardo

“This was great. I appreciate you talking to our parents, and helping them raise 'media healthy' children!”

- Parent Enrichment Coordinator, NYC

“Maureen was a hit! She was able to share new ideas and strategies with our parents, which really helped them. They asked a variety of questions and got immediate answers.”

- Principal, Elementary School in Atlanta

“We are still getting positive feedback about Maureen's keynote, and teachers using the tools she taught. It was truly life-changing to have her come visit our school system.”

- Superintendent, Mexico