The Parent Night People Actually Show Up To.
An evening session for the parents of teenagers, about how to talk to your kid about what they are capable of without turning it into one more thing they are failing at.
You know the real problem with parent night. It is not the content. It is the forty empty chairs. Parents come out on a Tuesday for two things: something their kid is in, or something they genuinely want. Chris Sund is a father of three who runs organizations for a living, and this session is built to be the second kind, which is also why it tends to fill a room that a policy update would not.
Most parents are not trying to push their kid too hard. They just do not know the difference between belief and pressure, because it sounds the same coming out of your mouth.
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Attendance is the whole game with a parent night. A name on a half-sheet gets ignored. A short clip of the speaker on morning television gets forwarded to the class group chat. Chris has been on TV in six markets and in Forbes, Inc., and the Midlands Business Journal, and every clip is in the media hub ready to drop into your newsletter.
Five things parents of teenagers keep getting wrong.
Not a lecture on parenting. Chris is a father of three with kids in school, and he is careful to say out loud that he is figuring it out alongside everyone in the room.
- Belief and pressure sound identical from the outside. "I know you can do better" is either the most encouraging sentence a kid hears or the heaviest one, and the difference is almost entirely in what came before it. This is the section parents stay after to talk about.
- The ninety seconds after a mistake belong to you. What a parent says in the first minute and a half after a bad grade, a bad game, or a bad decision does more to shape a kid's inner voice than any conversation scheduled for later that week.
- Your kid has a comfort ceiling and probably learned it at home. Teenagers absorb their sense of what is possible from watching how the adults around them handle their own limits. That is uncomfortable and it is also the most useful thing in the session.
- Praise for outcomes builds a fragile kid. What gets praised is what gets protected. A teenager praised only for results learns to avoid anything they might not win, which looks like laziness and is actually fear.
- You do not have to have the answer. Parents skip hard conversations because they think they need a solution first. Most kids are not looking for one. The section on this changes what a lot of parents do that same week.
On what the parent session is for
How the evening actually runs.
Sixty minutes, with time built in for questions, because the Q and A is usually the part parents tell their friends about.
Lower the defenses
He opens by admitting what he gets wrong with his own three kids. A parent audience will not take anything from someone positioned as an expert on their family, and the room relaxes the moment they realize this is not that.Belief versus pressure
The core of it. What the same sentence does depending on the account it is drawn from, and how to tell which one a teenager is hearing.The ninety seconds
What happens immediately after a failure, and the specific, small change most parents can make in that window. This is the one people actually take home.Questions, and one ask
Open floor, then a single specific thing to try before the week is out. Parents leave with one conversation to have, not a philosophy to adopt.Three kinds of evening.
Same session, different room and different reason for filling it.
Family Night & Parent University
Standalone evening events, parent academies, and the family portion of a back-to-school night. Works best when it is billed as the reason to come rather than tacked onto a schedule pickup.Booster Clubs & Preseason Meetings
The preseason parent meeting is the best-attended parent event most schools run, and most of it is spent on eligibility rules. Twenty extra minutes there reaches parents who never come to anything else.Churches, Nonprofits & Youth Programs
Youth organizations, faith communities, mentoring programs, and community education series. Often co-hosted with a school district so the cost and the audience are shared.Four movements. Ten principles.
The parent session runs the same architecture their kids hear in the assembly, which is the point. When both sides of the dinner table have the same language, something actually happens at home.
The Foundation
Ownership and time. What belongs to the kid, what belongs to the parent, and how much of the argument is about the line between them.The Breakthrough
The comfort ceiling and the inner voice. Where parents recognize their own patterns showing up in their teenager.The Standard
Truth over praise, and the hidden gear. Why the most useful thing a parent offers is an honest read rather than a comfortable one.The Purpose
Finishing, and leaving people better. The close, and the one most parents are quiet after.Send families home with the same book.
The strongest version of this is a copy in the parent's hands and a copy in the student's. Both sides of the dinner table working the same ten principles is where a one-night event turns into something that lasts past the weekend.
You Are Capable of More: A No-Excuses Guide to Becoming Your Best Self. An Amazon bestseller from Game Changer Publishing, with a foreword by Ben Newman.
Ten chapters across four movements, written plainly enough for a teenager and honest enough for the adult reading it at the same time. The free companion toolkit includes a discussion guide, a self-assessment, and a thirty day challenge a family can run together. Nothing is gated behind an email address.
The feedback speaks for itself.
His engaging style draws the audience into the conversation, creating a relaxed atmosphere that encourages learning and reflection. You leave not only inspired but equipped.
Chris was an outstanding speaker and a highlight of our event. He took the time to deeply understand our organization and thoughtfully personalized every moment.
Chris energized the room, sparked conversations, and encouraged connections throughout the event, with a lasting impact on our future leaders.
Chris is a thoughtful, intentional leader who understands the influence he carries. His message challenged me to think differently about how I lead, serve, and influence others.
Chris would be an incredible addition to any live audience. Each time he finds a unique way to connect on both a personal and professional level, keeping everyone engaged and attentive.
His engaging style draws the audience into the conversation, creating a relaxed atmosphere that encourages learning and reflection. You leave not only inspired but equipped.
Chris was an outstanding speaker and a highlight of our event. He took the time to deeply understand our organization and thoughtfully personalized every moment.
Chris energized the room, sparked conversations, and encouraged connections throughout the event, with a lasting impact on our future leaders.
Chris is a thoughtful, intentional leader who understands the influence he carries. His message challenged me to think differently about how I lead, serve, and influence others.
Chris would be an incredible addition to any live audience. Each time he finds a unique way to connect on both a personal and professional level, keeping everyone engaged and attentive.
Evenings schools already schedule.
He has three kids and no illusions.
Chris Sund is an executive leader, keynote speaker, and bestselling author of You Are Capable of More.
As President and COO of Uniti Med, GQR Healthcare, and Nebula, he helped grow Uniti Med 10x in two years and earn the number three ranking on the Inc. Regionals list among the fastest growing companies in the Midwest, while the organization earned Fortune Best Workplaces recognition and Great Place to Work certification three years running.
He is a father of three, a Maxwell Leadership Certified speaker, trainer, and coach, Vice President of the NATHO Board of Directors, and the founder of Amplify Speakers. He does not present himself to parent audiences as an authority on their family. He shows up as a father who has said the wrong thing to his own kids and has spent twenty years studying what makes people believe they are capable of more.
Details your team will ask for.
Principals and PTO boards ask these.
We struggle to get parents to show up. Will this actually draw people?
Is this a lecture on how to parent?
How long is it?
Can students attend with their parents?
How much does a parent night speaker cost?
Can our booster club or PTO fund it?
Can you add a student assembly the same day?
Do you do this for churches and community groups?
Is it available virtually?
How do we start?
Other ways schools book him.
Same framework, built for the specific room you are filling.