Writing
After publishing in the academic arena during her doctoral years, Dr. Robyn decided to branch out into writing for popular culture. This way, parents and teachers could access vital child and adolescent development information from publications they knew and trusted. Her main areas of expertise is in child and adolescent development, positive youth development, body image, character education and personal development, parenting, and teaching children values in all settings. Because she writes on a wide array of topics, she is open to writing for many different kinds of publications.
Dr. Robyn's work has been published in academic publications (Encyclopedia of Applied Developmental Science, Attachment and Human Development, School Age Notes), regional publications (Bay State Parent Magazine) national and international trade publications (MAsuccess Magazine, Eagle Express Magazine, Technique Gymnastics Magazine, USA Gymnastics), as well as popular online sites (About.com, ElegantPlus.com, Children of the New Earth, The All But Dissertation Survival Guide, PowerfulWordsOnline.com).
Speaking
Dr. Robyn began speaking and presenting at national conferences during her doctoral career at Tufts University. She greatly enjoyed it but felt that the child and adolescent development information she was emparting would be better served among parents and educators who needed strategies for creating successful families and classrooms. She started a girls group called Sassy Sisterhood which allowed Dr. Robyn to use her body image and confidence expertise in a very practical way. She was able to faciliate conversation among the girls and speak about pitfalls of media, sterotyping, poor mentors, pressuring peers, and more. This girls group was the catalyst for creating Extreme Dreams for Teens, co-created with a colleague, where she presented on body esteem to larger audiences which included preteen and teen girls and their mothers or trusted guardians.
At the same time, Dr. Robyn was getting more involved with the after school education sector through her internship at NIOST, Center for Research on Women, Wellesley College, Boston's 2-6 program, and United Way of Massachusetts Bay. She also helped run an after school program in Weymouth, Massachusetts which provided families with our full personal development program she call Powerful Words Character Development along with an exciting martial arts program taught by her husband, Jason. Dr. Robyn's involvement with the after school sector lead to additional speaking engagements at after school business conferences as well as parenting seminars at individual centers. These seminars center around, for example, helping children develop respect for commitment, rearing responsible children, helping children with goal-setting, coping with bullying, and creating children with confidence. While she travels to do many of these presentations, she also provides monthly teleconferences, group coaching tele-seminars, and customized tele-seminars for parents and educators.
Dr. Robyn's work with children and families has been featured on Fox 25 News, WBZ-4 News, as well as in Tufts University's Alma Matters Magazine, South Shore Living, and the local papers.
Body Image
As a body image expert and confidence coach, Dr. Robyn’s (as she is affectionately called by the girls with whom she works) groundbreaking research at Tufts University demonstrates that not all plus-size young women view themselves similarly in terms of body image. In fact, despite the generalized portrayal of overweight females as being “at-risk” in both formal research and popular media, some overweight American females can transcend negative stereotypes and become exemplars of positive functioning. Her research focused on young aspiring plus size models who deviate considerably from the American ideal of thinness, and yet nevertheless have found a way to “fit-in” and thrive. This research is the first of its kind– using the Positive Youth Development approach to show that despite weight, all youth possess assets that can be ultimately linked to healthy and positive development. Given her background and research , Dr. Robyn was most recently published in the Applied Developmental Science Encyclopedia, a handbook for psychologists, as the expert in body image, appearance discrimination, and body esteem development in young people.
Dr Robyn’s research as well as her consulting work on gender sensitivity in after school programming lead her to implement specialized gender-related curriculum called The Sassy Sisterhood Girls Circle, a program for preadolescent girls which explores issues that affect self esteem, body esteem, and self image. It is designed to foster self-awareness, challenge stereotypes, counter trends toward self-doubt, and allow for genuine self-expression through verbal sharing and creative activity. Activities include group discussion on body image, friendship, and what it means to be a girl in America as well more creative activities such as role playing, media evaluation, drama, journaling, dance, drawing, and painting. Her overall philosophy for the program is that young people are assets to be developed rather than deficits to be managed. She has been told that she has a unique ability to help girls open up and divulge their most extreme dreams and their deepest concerns– and she believes it to be an honor to be granted that privilege.
Dr. Robyn has co-developed and co-produced a full “confidence” conference for girls and their mothers entitled Extreme Dreams for Teens: Fitting in and Standing Out which has recently been commissioned by the Girl Scouts as part of the National Uniquely Me Self Esteem grant. While Dr. Robyn has worked with parents and girls separately, this conference helps mothers and daughters work together to broach topics of body image, confidence, and coping with today’s pressures to be “perfect.” As a bi-product of that conference, a self published story book for girls entitled, Square Peg, Round Hole has been developed out of a need for an way to for parents to broach body image and fitting with their young daughters.
Dr. Robyn is a column writer for http://www.ElegantPlus.com, a website for plus-size girls and women which receives over 1.5 million unique visitors per year worldwide and over 95,000 page views per week. Her column, Kiss my Assets, focuses on issues pertaining to body image, appearance discrimination, confidence, and being a girl in today’s appearance-focused society.
Character Education
In addition, Dr. Robyn serves as a consultant for personal development centers in 12 countries, developing and teaching her comprehensive character development curriculum, POWerfulWordsOnline.com and GoldMedalCharacter.com and offering her expertise in child and adolescent development. The program is a teaching system that provides instructors with tools so that they can teach their students about self respect, confidence, open-mindedness, self reliance and other character related words while teaching their standard curriculum. The aim of the program is to encourage children to look within themselves and develop a strong sense of self as well as positive relationships with others. The POWerful Words character program is currently being used in over 500 after school personal development centers in multiple countries throughout the world. The sister program, POWerful Family, assists parents in building character and confidence in their children.
Click here if you are a parent and would like to learn more about Powerful Family for your home.
Coaching
As a personal success coach for parents, educators and teens, Dr. Robyn provides both one-on-one coaching as well as group tele-coaching through DrRobynSilverman.com. Individual goals are often related to confidence, body esteem, relationships, and personal success. Group tele-seminars help people to discuss topics of interest and receive answers to their questions from the comfort of their own homes. Dr. Robyn provides monthly group teleseminars for 50-100 teachers who are interested in providing a personal development component to their classes. Dr. Robyn often collaborates with other professionals to provide more comprehensive teleseminars. One such collaboration with Dr. Christine Wood, MD, a pediatrician and author of the book, Kids Eat Great, entitled Diet Riot: Eating for Health and Mental Wellness for Families is forthcoming. The teleconference will explore body image, body size, and obesity.
Click here if you would like to learn more about coaching with Dr. Robyn.
Educational Experience
Dr. Robyn has been educated at Washington University in St. Louis, Oxford University of England, and Tufts University’s Eliot Pearson Department of Child Development in Massachusetts. She has an eclectic background in public schools, private schools, hospitals, United Way, and the National Institute of Out-of-School Time at Wellesley College, Center for Research on Women.
She resides in South Weymouth, Massachusetts with her fabulous family.