Raising Caring, Resilient and Values-Guided Children (in an Age of Anxiety)

Parents and caregivers want to raise “good people”—children who are kind to themselves, others, and their communities. But how can we nurture kindness, empathy, and resilience while facing issues like mental health challenges, bullying, and stress?

Join us for a powerful evening with Dr. Richard Weissbourd, Senior Lecturer at Harvard’s Graduate School of Education and Director of the Making Caring Common Project, as he discusses what young people need most from adults in today’s complex world.

Dr. Weissbourd will share:

• The root causes behind the growing mental health crisis and rising hopelessness in youth
• How parents and caregivers can foster kindness, empathy, and a sense of purpose in their children
• The vital role of meaning and connection in an achievement-driven culture
• Why adult well-being matters—and how to care for yourself while caring for your children

This timely and practical presentation will offer insights and actionable strategies to help families raise emotionally healthy, caring kids—while also supporting caregivers’ own mental health and resilience.

• Free and open to all caregivers, educators, and community members
• Includes time for Q&A with Dr. Weissbourd
• Book sales by Ten Trees Books
• All registered participants will receive a follow-up email with additional resources

Spark Kindness is committed to providing events that are accessible to all community members. Live ASL Interpretation will be provided at this event. Please contact us with accommodation questions at [email protected]. Spark Kindness is an Autism Welcoming Organization.

KINDNESS WEEK is a community celebration to shine the spotlight on the good that happens every day and inspire people to spread kindness through their own actions and connect with others to help us live and fulfill Spark's mission of creating a community where no one feels alone, bullied, unsupported or unconnected. Learn more at sparkkindness.org.

(as of 8/28/25) MetroWest Subaru

Richard Weissbourd is a Senior Lecturer at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and he also teaches at the Kennedy School of Government. His work focuses on moral development, meaning and purpose, mental health challenges among teens and young adults and effective schools and services for children facing risks. He directs the Making Caring Common Project, a national effort to make moral and social development priorities in child-raising and to provide strategies to schools and parents for promoting in children caring, a commitment to justice and other key moral and social capacities. He leads an initiative to reform college admissions, Turning the Tide, which seeks to elevate ethical character, reduce excessive achievement pressure and increase equity and access in the college admissions process. He is also conducting research on how older adults can better mentor young adults and teenagers in developing caring, mature romantic relationships. 

He is a founder of several interventions for children facing risks, including ReadBoston andWriteBoston, city-wide literacy initiatives that were led by Mayor Menino. He is also a co-founder of a pilot school in Boston, the Lee Academy, that begins with children at 3 years old. He has advised on the city, state and federal levels on family policy, parenting and school reform and has written for numerous scholarly and popular publications and blogs, including The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, Psychology Today and NPR. He is the author of The Vulnerable Child: What Really Hurts America’s Children and What We Can Do About It (Addison-Wesley, 1996), named by the American School Board Journal as one of the top 10 education books of all time. His most recent book, The Parents We Mean to Be: How Well-Intentioned Adults Undermine Children's Moral and Emotional Development (Houghton Mifflin 2009), was named by The New Yorker as one of the top 24 books of 2009.

Host or Publisher SPARK Kindness