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

See Fewer Videos

Speech Topics

Boosting Well-Being: Planting the Seeds

Meta-analyses show that schools with integrated well-being programs often see an 11 percentile point gain in academic achievement. So, well-being programs do help boost student mood, but also clearly contribute to improved learning outcomes. Invite Maureen to understand the research backed and best practices of today’s well-being programs.

Specifically, Maureen will customize her event but may cover:

Micro-habits of well-being in the school and classroom (embedded into curriculum)
Restorative practices that benefit K-5, Middle and High School Students
Character development (essential concepts to help children)
Brain Science and Digital Well-Being (“the dopamine loop”)

Common myths of well-being programs may also be addressed such as the belief that they’re about feeling good all the time. Wrong! They may (and often do) have the side effect of boosting student and community mood, but they go much deeper including strengthening student belonging, self-regulation and identity, co-regulation with adults, school climate scores and smart use of technology including AI.

Student 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.

With deep awareness and understanding, Maureen shares with educators, administrators, parents and professionals the how of building children’s resilience and inner strength in today’s noisy 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