Growing Up and Understanding It

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UGA Extension Gwinnett is sponsoring a series of discussions called Growing Up and Understanding It. This program is designed for parents or guardians to attend with their children. The speakers cover basic physical and emotional aspects of human growth and development including puberty, facts and misconceptions, hygiene and exercise, and much more. This program helps parents or guardians and their children communicate and learn to discuss changes during growing up.

This free event will take place in the Winter of 2018.

Meet The Instructors

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Don Bowers
Dr. Bower's research focuses on the effectiveness and impact of a variety of community-based educational outreach initiatives. In particular, these include parenting education, adolescent development, gerontology, and childhood injury prevention.

As professor emeritus with the University of Georgia, Dr. Bower provides regular guest lectures in a variety of undergraduate and graduate courses. Dr. Bower's outreach education programs include programming in parenting education, military families, and childhood injury prevention. He also provides regular in-service education for Extension faculty and workshops for community groups and other professionals.
   
Diane Bales
Dr. Bales develops Extension programs in early childhood development, including both child care provider education and parenting education. Her current programming emphasizes promoting awareness of the importance of early brain development for the healthy development of infants and young children through Better Brains for Babies and helping families and teachers of preschool-age children reduce young children's risk of obesity through the Eat Healthy, Be Active initiative.

She is the co-leader of the national eXtension Alliance for Better Child Care, which provides online educational resources to help teachers provide high-quality child care for young children, including children from military-connected families.