6 Reasons Parenting Coaching Is Your Best First Step
A parenting coach is not usually a child clinical psychologist, nor even a marriage family therapist or licensed social worker.
I always tell my clients right up front: I am not a mental health specialist; I am a coach.
And, still, consulting a parenting coach might well be your Best First Step.
Here’s why.
You are Your Child’s First Teacher
No one has a greater influence on your child than you do. No one spends more hours with your child than you do. That means no one is more of an expert on your child than you are.
Even if you get a diagnosis from an expert, you are the one living with your child’s behaviors day in and day out. A professional can only achieve so much with a child in a weekly session. True progress depends on Mom and Dad consistently working on the skill with their child at home. A parenting coach has the time to help you understand deeply about the power of your relationship with your child and to help you interact with your child effectively.
2. Change in Your Child Requires Change in You
It will never be enough to send your child to a mental health specialist. How your child behaves depends to a large degree on how they are treated. A child clinical psychologist treats the child; they seldom have time to teach parents. They can tell you what to do but they do not support you in responding that way consistently.
A parent coach provides accountability. Coaches prompt behaviors in you like daily reflection. I will ask you to take five minutes before bed every day to write down what worked with your child and what didn’t. Even five minutes of daily reflection will support you in showing up more deliberately for your child.
3. Change Your Child’s Environment, Change Your Child
How your child shows up in the world depends in large part on the environment they are in. You’ve probably noticed that your child is a “problem” in some teachers’ classrooms; in other teachers’ classrooms, your child seems to thrive. Same kid. Same diagnosis. But they show up differently depending on where they are.
Parenting coaches work with parents to optimize the environment—whether that is at home or analyzing which school setting or extra-curricular activities are going to best support your child. You are the parent: You make life-changing decisions like deciding to pull your child from the soccer team where the coach doesn’t get your kid.
4. Learn to Focus on the Positive
Psychologists are in the business of diagnosing a child. Their lens is one of negativity. To diagnose a child, they look at what is wrong or what is missing. That’s why you hear words like “deficit” or “disorder.”
A parenting coach focuses on what is going well. We celebrate your wins as a parent. We celebrate your child’s strengths. A coach asks what your child does well. When is your child in flow? And then a coach works with you to organize your home life in such a way that your child gets more of that.
For example, a child with ADHD generally thrives on novelty and challenge and gets stuck with boring, repetitive tasks. Put your child to work in the kitchen with you as their sous chef, and you have a match made in heaven: They pick the recipe and drive executing the pieces step by step. You chop the onions and wash the dishes.
Yes, I know that life consists of a lot of dishwashing, but your child experiences a lot of negative feedback every day about how they are not quite on top of things. The more you structure positive experiences for them, the more you will grow their capacity for getting some of the mundane things done.
5. Shift Your Perspective, Shift Your Child
A parenting coach helps you see that your kid’s biggest challenge is often her greatest asset—what is hard on you as a parent is going to be what has your child excelling as an adult.
My daughter was an exceedingly stubborn toddler. Where you could explain things to her little friends and they might test the limit once or twice, Julie would test the limit over and over and over. We had no gate at the end of our driveway, so I showed her the crack in the pavement that was the boundary to the front yard. would put my body between her and the boundary line, so that she couldn’t go over it, but no matter how many times I stopped her and redirected her, she would strive to cross over it. I called her my obdurate rascal.
One day my friend observed her focused efforts to climb a particular section of the jungle gym—over and over and over—and remarked, “Boy, Julie sure does get an A+ for persistence.”
Wow! That was a game-changer for me. Instead of seeing my daughter as stubborn, I started to see all the ways that she was persistent and how that drive for mastery served her. (Now she is a neuroscientist—a job that requires her single-minded doggedness.) When you change how you see your child, you feel proud instead of frustrated.
6. Learn How to Use Your Body and Your Voice.
Mental health professionals are great in theory but are less skilled at teaching parents how to implement their advice. In my experience, parents are often well-read about parenting, but they aren’t getting the results they want. That’s because they are not using their body and voice effectively.
Parenting coaching provides the practice it takes to learn how to keep your body relaxed and confident even in the face of a child’s tantrum or outburst. We are a powerful source when it comes to our kids’ abilities to regulate. Our children’s nervous systems borrow calm from our nervous system. When our blood pressure goes down, so does theirs. A parent coach helps you to brainstorm and rehearse ways to get grounded.
Parenting coaching also gives you the opportunity to train your vocal flexibility. A lot of effective discipline is achieved by being able to shift your voice from a bright cheerful tone to get your child’s attention, to steel under velvet clarity about your expectation to a warmly empathetic tone that acknowledges that what you’re asking might not be in alignment with what your child wants at the moment.
Many parents seek the help of a mental health professional because they want to “fix” their child. Your capacity to change, however, is much greater than your child’s because you are able to keep the big picture in mind and be motivated by long-term goals.
As You Get Your Child Help, Get the Help You Need
Effective parenting takes a lot of rehearsal, preparation, and feedback.
And that’s what I provide as a parenting coach.
In our weekly sessions we anticipate sticky situations, talk through how to best handle them, and set your kids up for success with the skills they need. The following week we debrief and evaluate where you were successful and where making a different parenting choice might have allowed for a more helpful outcome.
Sign up for a complimentary Getting to Know You Call to see what a difference parenting coaching could make in your life.