Why Do We Have Parenting Coaches Now?

Why do we have parenting coaches today when we didn’t used to 

You might think that parenting coaching came about as part of the general rise of the coaching industry.  To some extent you are right, but that is not the complete answer.   

Historically, parenting was a task we learned organically.   We grew up in extended families and in close-knit communities.  When we were young, we played out on the streets with kids older and younger than us. We were babysitters, lifeguards and camp counselors.  We had neighborhood b-b-q’s where, as teens and emerging young adults, we were given temporary charge of an infant or toddler while a busy mother tended to something else.  

In short, by the time we became parents, we had had many interactions with kids of different ages and stages.  We had had micro-moments of deciding when to distract a child, when to comfort him or when to firmly and confidently insist he listen to us.   

Through these experiences, we gained competence and confidence as parents.   

When we became parents ourselves, we were not alone.   

When my daughter was born, I was lucky enough to live in the same town as my mother and my mother-in-law.  I was five miles from my sister and her two little ones.  I had their weekly, if not daily, hands-on help.  From them I learned how to assuredly soothe my colicky baby and later when to set firmer limits. 

 Admittedly, sometimes the lessons were in what NOT to do.   

 I remember having dinner at my sister’s house to help with her newborn while she tended to her toddler.  One night it took two hours to get my niece to bed.  First, there were the expected stories, songs and snuggling to help her transition to sleep, but every time the two-year-old popped out of bed with a request for a drink or even an extra cuddle, they’d take her back to bed and repeat the stories and songs as if they hadn’t already read and sung to her.   

I thought to myself, there is no way I am going to spend two hours every night putting my child to sleep.  Instead, when my daughter learned to climb out of her crib, I would walk her back to bed and say, “I love you, and now it is time for sleep. You are safe. Sleep well.”  Then I would walk away. As. Many. Times. As.  Needed.  It didn’t take long before she just stayed in bed and learned to lull herself back to sleep.  She got a better night’s rest, and I got a few precious hours of adult time before I went to bed myself.   

Having both the support and the example of my family was such a blessing to me as I stepped into motherhood. 

Today’s parents do not have that kind of support. 

Living in the San Francisco/Bay Area, most of my clients are transplants from other states or other countries.  They feel completely alone.  Zoom calls and texts help some, but remote help does not instruct and support in the same way.   

 I remember helping one Indian family who felt desperately isolated.  The husband was working long days. The wife, Aja, was home alone with their infant son all day long.   

Although she lived in an apartment building with many other new mothers, Aja found it hard to make friends with them.   And even when she did make friends, they mostly went back to work as soon as six weeks after their infants were born.   

 Aja shared with me the low point which sent her looking for a parenting coach. 

It was one of those days when everything seemed to go wrong.  The baby, Nevin, woke screaming with a blowout poopy diaper.  Aja had cleaned him up, comforted him, fed him and was ready to address the crib sheet that needed to be changed when he had a second blowout diaper. 

 It wasn’t even eight in the morning, and Aja was in tears.  She was facing a day of one crisis after the next while her husband Arun got up, showered and ran out the door saying he would grab his breakfast at Google.   

Later, when she complained to Arun about the day, his perspective was that he had helped out by not asking her to make his breakfast.   

 That set Aja off on another crying jag. 

 Clearly, Aja could not show up for her son and be the mother she wanted to be without some kind of help.   

Although as a parent coach I was also only giving remote help, I was able to help Aja and Arun address their unique situation.  Families in India which are used to having lots of extra family members around (not to mention a cheap and ready domestic staff) cannot imagine the physical demand of caring for an infant by yourself ten hours a day.  Far away on the other side of the world, they underestimate the weight of the drudgery and loneliness, not to mention the anxiety and hit to one’s self-esteem.   

For dual-income working parents, it is even worse. 

We weren’t meant to parent in three hours a day and yet for many parenting little kids, that is today’s reality.  Parents have around an hour with their children in the morning. During that same hour, they are trying to get showered, dressed and fed themselves.  When their children become toddlers who start exerting their independence, getting out the door in the morning becomes a nightmare. 

 It is possible to get out the door relatively smoothly, but it is not going to happen without a plan and a united team effort.   

Most parents are woefully unprepared to tackle that plan on their own, and when they go to the internet, they find twenty-eight different opinions that seem to contradict each other.  Parenting partners find it hard to agree on what approach to take, and that brings tension and resentment into an already stressed system.   

Enter the parenting coach. 

When I am coaching parents, I bring a lifetime of experience with kids to the table.   

I had my first job as mother’s helper at nine.  By eleven, I was babysitting two or three nights a week for infants through kids only a few years younger than I.  Add to that six years of being a camp counselor, twenty-five years of teaching plus raising my own three children, and that’s over 50,000 hours of asking the question how to engage kids more effectively and how to create more flow and harmony at home.   

Could you use some parenting coaching? 

Parenting was never meant to be done in isolation.  Parents are not supposed to know what to do on their own.  Parenting is a learned skill:  That means it can be taught, practiced and mastered.  There’s no shame in getting help with something you have never done before.  I’m here to help!

 Sign up for a Getting to Know You Call today.