Essential Parenting Conversations and How to Have Them

Classes - Adult / Special Interest -

Adult Classes Winter/Spring 2026

Based on her book Fourteen Talks by Age Fourteen, Michelle offers a developmental primer on communication break downs during adolescence and exactly how to get your child engaged again. Learn what "conversation crashers" are sure to derail a good talk and how to have meaningful conversations with your tween or teen on even the most awkward but essential topics every parent needs to have. Michelle offers concrete, actionable plans for addressing such issues as risky behavior, changing friendships, sexuality, impulsivity, hard work, and more.

This program is made possible through funding by the Partners for Healthy Kids grant and the Wayzata Public Schools District Liaison Committee.

Michelle Icard

Michelle Icard (pronounced IKE-urd) has degrees in English and Education and has worked with parents, children, and teachers for more than 20 years, creating curriculum, books, and programs that help them better understand and navigate early adolescence.

Michelle is the author of three books on this subject:

8 Setbacks That Can Make a Child a Success: What to Do and What to Say to Turn “Failures’ into Character-Building Moments (2023) is an invaluable playbook for anxious parents everywhere, ensuring that a child’s mistakes or rebellions don’t become the headline of their childhood, but instead become a launch pad to a better future.
Fourteen Talks by Age Fourteen: The Essential Conversations You Need to Have with Your Kids Before They Start High School (2021) helps parents prepare kids for the emotional, physical, and social challenges ahead, including scripts and advice to keep the communication going and stay connected during this critical developmental window.
Middle School Makeover: Improving the Way You and Your Child Experience the Middle School Years (2014) is a primer for the social and emotional changes parents and kids navigate when mid-life meets middle school under one roof.

Michelle has been a writer for the TODAY Show parenting team, NBC News Learn, CNN Science and Wellness, and the Washington Post. Michelle’s work has also been featured in the Chicago Tribune, Christian Science Monitor, Redbook, Time, and People. Her leadership curriculum for middle schoolers, Athena’s Path and Hero’s Pursuit, have been implemented at schools and summer camps across the United States. She has two young adult children who mostly live elsewhere these days, which leaves lots of time for reading, walking her dogs, obsessively binging shows, and puzzling (crossword and jigsaw) with her husband in Charlotte, North Carolina.