Ask Bonnie to teach a parent workshop or seminar via Zoom.

Bonnie Harris
Photo by Ben Conant

Bring a parent workshop to your group of friends, parents at your school or agency. Bonnie will teach a parenting workshop on any of the subjects you find on the Speaking & Teaching page.

And if the topic you want is not here, ask for it.

Here are three of her most popular:

Find a Certified “Buttons” Educator in your location »

The When Your Kids Push Your Buttons Parent Workshop

After teaching parenting classes for more than ten years, Bonnie realized that many parents, enthusiastic about their new skills, often returned to class more discouraged than ever. Now they knew what they wanted to do but they still couldn’t do it. It was because their buttons were getting pushed. Bonnie saw that a critical step was missing in parent education. No parenting skill can work for a parent whose button has been pushed. As a result, she developed a parenting workshop called When Your Kids Push Your Buttons to address this critical missing piece.

All parents get their buttons pushed by their children. We open our mouths intending to correct our child’s behavior and out come those words we swore we would never say. We react automatically in ways we hate, our authority is lost, and parenting skills are totally inaccessible. Nothing effective can be taught or learned. Our children drive us crazy by pushing those buttons again and again, and we lose control again and again.

The Buttons Workshop will help you stop the vicious cycle of action/reaction from spinning once and for all. The workshop will help you:

  • identify your buttons
  • discover the roots of your child’s behavior
  • narrow the ever-widening gap between you and your child
  • understand why your child/ren push your buttons
  • learn why they have more to do with your past than with your child
  • learn how to defuse them and regain your authority to parent the way you always expected you would

Parents will each receive a workbook of exercises to be discussed and completed in the workshop. Each workshop is highly interactive, and parents will learn from each other as well as the instructor.

Below is a list of suggested workshop formats. However, workshops can be designed around any format/time frame that meets your specific needs. To contact Bonnie to develop a personalized program for you or to request more information click here.

Buttons Part 1: 6 hours (can stand alone)

Or – Part 1 can be done in 3-4 hours a day over 2 days. Part 1 can stand alone or a facilitator can return at a later date for Part 2 done in the same way.

Part 1 will help you become aware of exactly what it is you are reacting to (it’s not your child!) and what to do about it in order to stop reacting so that you can respond effectively and maintain connection with your child. You will learn how your best intentions of teaching better behavior often get lost in “the gap” and misunderstood by your child causing parent-deafness.

Participants learn:

  • What your buttons are and why they get pushed
  • How your agenda plays a part – and your child’s agenda too
  • It’s your assumptions that provoke your reactions
  • How reframing your assumptions can change your reactions
  • How your expectations can set you and your child up for failure
  • Ways to readjust your expectations for success

You will discover the critical step that instantly and automatically creates the obstacle to effective parenting and turns you into the parent you swore you would never be. Understanding that step will open awareness, change perceptions, and transform the blame and anger that are the result of a pushed button. You will learn how to defuse that button so that your responses to your child build connection through understanding and compassion.

Exercises and group interaction translate theories into practical solutions.

Buttons Part 2: 6 hours (prerequisite – Part 1)

Or – 3-4 hours over 2 days

Our reactions to our button-pushing children are rooted in our past. The expectations we hold for them often are transferred from or are compensating for our childhood experiences. Part 2 shows you where your buttons originate and takes you to that deeper level to discover how the limiting beliefs we learned in childhood are actually the buttons our children push.

Participants learn:

  • More about your expectations and the power they hold
  • The beliefs you bought into about yourself on the other side of the gap
  • Why you choose to hang onto those beliefs that fuel your reactions
  • The 9 habits to defusing your buttons
  • What to do in the moment your button is pushed

Part 2 opens the door to new ways of connecting with your child that you will never be able to close again. You will become aware of the choice you have: You can punish your child for pushing your button or you can find out what your button is telling you about yourself that may no longer be true. And you will learn that your button-pusher is the most important teacher you will ever have.

Exercises and group interaction translate theories into practical solutions.

The Buttons Weekend – 16 hours

This intensive weekend covers all the material of Part 1 and Part 2. Typically it begins Friday evening and continues for two full days Saturday and Sunday, but it can be formatted in any way to incorporate 16 hours.

The Buttons Five Day

This workshop is presented each day for 3 hours and covers all the material for Part 1 and Part 2. The beauty of the Five Day is that participants get “home” time with their children to put their learning into place immediately in their daily parenting life. There is more time to digest the material as the workshop continues. Immediate personal experiences from home can be brought in and worked on in the workshop. Short overnight assignments will help participants prepare for the following day which will help integrate the material further.

One parent said of the Buttons Workshop:
“I remember thinking ‘I can’t believe there is anything that is going to get me to stop shouting at my children’, but at the same time wishing there was a magical wand. I genuinely believe that Bonnie has virtually managed to wave it! It was quite incredible and almost a week later I feel much happier and a nicer Mum.”


Why Do Some Kids Make It Hard and Others Make It Easy?

Understanding the Integrity and Harmony Kids

Do you have a child who argues with you on everything and refuses to be told what to do? Do you tear your hair out and feel like a terrible parent? And/or do you have one who is an absolute delight and makes you feel like the best parent in the world? But who may care a bit too much about making you happy? To be the parent these kids need, it’s critical to learn who they are so they can all flourish. Based on 30 years of scientific research by numerous international clinicians on the “Orchid and the Dandelion” child, Bonnie will give you the insights you need to understand your Integrity Child and your Harmony Child. It can be a game changer.

This is a 1 1/2 hour or 2 hour talk for parents or teachers of any aged child.


Confident Parents, Remarkable Kids: The 8 Principles

Unconditional acceptance is what we know our children need. Few know how to give it while setting the limits necessary to ensure a balance of needs in the family. Based on her book Confident Parents, Remarkable Kids: 8 Principles for Raising Kids You’ll Love to Live With, Bonnie Harris’ approach begins with the assumption that children want to do what is right, want to cooperate, and want to please us. What we see as misbehavior means that a child is having a problem, not being a problem.

With these principles, you will look for and see your children’s qualities and capabilities rather than irritations and inadequacies. You will understand their behavior as clues rather than calamities and learn to be a detective rather than a police officer. You will learn how to connect with your children, even in the toughest times, and teach them to problem solve, take responsibility, and be accountable for their actions—without punishment or blame. And you will regain the authority that your children really do want you to have.

The eight principles will help you develop your parenting philosophy. Having that core provides you with a reservoir from which to draw, so whatever the situation, your response is consistent and grounded and you can parent with confidence. When we act like the grownups we are meant to be, our children can act like the children they are—children you’ll love to live with.

The workshop is divided into the following topics:

  • Understanding your child’s intentions and behavior
  • Providing Acceptance—your child’s greatest need
  • Expectations must be set for success
  • The power of connection and mindful focus
  • Connective communication
  • Problem Solving
  • Conflict Resolution
  • Boundaries and balance

This interactive workshop will take your at-home situations and put the principles to work to fit your children and your experience.

The workshop can be given in 8 sessions of 2 hours each or 4 sessions of 4 hours each — 16 hours total.


An excerpt from a “When Your Kids Push Your Buttons” presentation, pt. 1 – about 6 min

Understanding how the assumptions we make determine the negative reactions we have toward our children.


An excerpt from a “When Your Kids Push Your Buttons” presentation, pt. 2 – about 9 min

Understanding the 1st principle of Connective Communication: My child wants to be successful, especially when his behavior looks the opposite. Also balancing your needs with the needs of your child.