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

How Students Can Learn with AI

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is reshaping how students learn, complete their assignments and consider future careers. Today’s classroom looks vastly different from the one we grew up in—and navigating it effectively requires an innovative approach.

In this session, Maureen demonstrates how to empower students to:

Best Use of AI in Education – Students who understand how to ask questions and use AI as a support or assistant versus crutch will be developing real-world skills. Maureen covers scripts, scenarios and approaches to guide students to deeply understand the role (and not the role) of AI in learning.
Develop Discernment & Critical Thinking
Gain AI Literacy – Gain a deeper understanding of the best practices in teaching AI Literacy skills to students, as well as the mechanisms of how AI really works.
Gain AI Integrity – Gain a deeper understanding of how to teach students to be responsible and honest with their use of AI in learning. Maureen shares stories and best practices so that students have their own “ah-ha” moments on why this is important.

Participants walkaway with a clear picture of how AI can be effective in helping students learn – in certain scenarios, while it is not a replacement for real-world connections and relationships.

The Future of K–12 Education: Teaching for a World We Can’t Yet Imagine

Maureen cuts through the noise to deliver a practical roadmap for the future of K–12 education. Instead of looking at technology as a substitute for teaching or distraction, this session highlights how AI and emerging tools can be leveraged to enhance learning, automate administrative burdens, and free up educators to focus on what they do best: connecting, coaching and instructing students with empathy.

Participants will have a re-energized vision of educating for future success, and a meaningful life. Some key takeaways include:

The AI-Augmented Classroom: How to integrate AI into instruction, assessment, and lesson planning while teaching critical thinking. Real-life examples of how AI enhances instruction and engages students can guide your pedagogy.
Shift to Human Capabilities: Why "soft skills"—such as adaptability, emotional intelligence, collaboration, and complex problem-solving—are becoming the ultimate core subjects.
Rethinking Assessment: Shifting towards portfolio-based, project-driven, and real-world mastery demonstrations versus solely standard testing.
Leadership: Concrete steps leaders can take today to future-proof their curriculum, infrastructure, and professional development. Understand meaningful trends and changes that will likely impact your students.

Resilience: The Power to Bounce Back

Resilience is not as an innate trait a child has or doesn't have, but as a skill to be developed through science-backed approaches, relationships and mindset.

Participants will gain a deeper understanding of the science of student resiliency, as well as the practical strategies that help them learn how to bounce back – no matter what. Maureen tailors each program but may discuss:

The Resilience Mindset: Learn scripts, stories and strategies that help students build their resiliency toolkit. Understanding the language that can effectively guide students to strengthen their ability to persevere, bounce back, and overcome what feels like tremendous challenges is what Maureen is known for.
Strategies: Science-backed strategies that build (or repair) resiliency can help students (and adults) form a resilient mindset, as well as deploy tactics in the moment to persevere and bounce back. This is essential to building an adaptive resiliency toolkit.
When Bouncing Back is Hard: Understanding the necessary ingredients for a typical student to bounce back is essential in the building, repair and maintaining of resiliency – and when something is missing the ability to bounce back is greatly diminished. Maureen shares some “red flags” for teachers and parents to spot and if they locate, they might benefit from bringing in a specialized professional.
Connection to SEL: Becoming happier and more joyful in this world requires that you learn how to manage difficult emotions, which requires inner strength and resilience. Happier students aren’t without difficulties they’ve simply learned how to handle them better, and that is what Maureen can help your classroom, community and school do.

The Emotionally Healthy Child: Deepening SEL for Student Success

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 the classroom.
Science-backed tools that helped children and teens 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 engages with all participants.

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