Posts by Elisabeth Stitt
The Role of a Parenting Coach in Managing Child Behavior Issues
The Role of a Parenting Coach in Managing Child Behavior Issues

Using a parent coach to manage child behaviors makes more sense than you might think.

First, parenting is a skill; it is not innate.

Many parents hesitate to get help because they feel that a good parent should just know instinctively how to help and guide their child.

These parents do not realize that historically parenting knowledge has been handed down from generation to generation by the wise counsel of the village—by parents, grandparents, religious leaders in the olden days and more recently by teachers, coaches and even librarians.

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Parenting, Parenting Coaching, Parenting styles, TantrumsElisabeth Stittbehavior
Using Parenting Coaching to Develop Positive Discipline Strategies 
Using Parenting Coaching to Develop Positive Discipline Strategies 

Parent Coaching can be a priceless tool in helping you translate your understanding of parenting concepts like Positive Discipline into action.  A Parent Coach can provide multiple, real-life examples of what to say, when to say it and how to say it to create the best possible bond between you and your children, so peace, calm, harmony, mutual respect and cooperation reign in your household.   

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Parenting Coaching, Positive DisciplineElisabeth Stittpositive discipline, discipline, mutual respect
Addressing Sibling Rivalry with Parenting Coaching
Addressing Sibling Rivalry with Parenting Coaching

Fighting among your kids can ruin any chance of peace and harmony in your home and, more importantly, it can ruin your relationship with your kids. 

Parenting coaching can support you in creating the happy, healthy relationships among with each other that will serve your kids now and well beyond your lifetime.   

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Sibling Rivalry, Build ConnectionsElisabeth StittSibling Rivalry Solutions, Parenting Coaching for Sibling Rivalry, How to Stop Kids Fighting, Reducing Sibling Conflicts, Strengthening Sibling Bonds, Building Strong Family Relationships, Family time, Special Time, Family Culture
Tween Friendships
Tween Friendships

Middle school is a time of intense growth. Your child is forming their identity and can be more influenced by peers than ever before. Friendships become complex, intense, and sometimes confusing. Social hierarchies and cliques emerge, along with the overwhelming pressure to fit in. And short-lived friendships can lead to feelings of uncertainty and instability.

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friendshipElisabeth Stitt
Cross Cultural Parenting
Cross Cultural Parenting

Many of my clients first came to the United States as adults, sometimes for graduate school, but often for a job.  Some of them brought their young children with them; some had their children in the United States.

But here’s the truth:  If your child enters preschool or Kindergarten in the United States, you are raising an American.  At the very least a hybrid child.

It is only natural, that you will have some cultural crashes with your children.  

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Elisabeth Stitt
Navigating Adolescence: Embracing Relationship-Centric Parenting
Navigating Adolescence: Embracing Relationship-Centric Parenting

You would think that as a middle school teacher, I would have been telling parents to make sure they help their children get homework done. You would think I would have them prioritize that over getting to bed on time or over a family outing.

No.

My advice to parents is to always put your relationship with your child first.

I say that because there is nothing more precious.

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Elisabeth Stitt
4 STEPS TO BEING A UNITED PARENTING TEAM
4 STEPS TO BEING A UNITED PARENTING TEAM

“I adore my husband, but I hate parenting with him. I feel like I can handle the kids alone, but he comes in and mixes it all up."  Seriously, when parents contact me, conflict with one's spouse about how he or she parents is always some part of what is keeping their household from being as fully calm and harmonious as they want it to be.  That means that one of my biggest roles as a parenting coach is to help parents get on the same page.

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Elisabeth StittJoyful Parenting Coaching
Creating Your Best Summer Ever
Creating Your Best Summer Ever

Do you have a love-hate relationship with summer when it comes to your kids? Especially your teens?

If you answered yes, you are not alone! I get this a lot from the parents I work with.

Summer used to be the ice cream truck, spending hours in the pool, and riding our bikes around the neighborhood.

Now it’s feeling torn between work and being there for our kids, logistical nightmares of getting kids to a different camp every week and spending the whole summer feeling guilty that our kids are spending too much time on their screens.

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Build Connections, Independence, Parenting, Setting limitsElisabeth Stittsummer, summer plan, creating a summer plan, summer kid activities
4 Steps to Engage Your Kids as Critical Thinkers
4 Steps to Engage Your Kids as Critical Thinkers

One of the negative effects of all this technology at our fingertips is that we are not asking our kids to really think things through or be critical thinkers. Our kids today are used to getting instant gratification by the ease of finding information online --that use of tech together with our tendency to helicopter parent and plan everything out for our kids--we are essentially imposing our executive functioning instead which doesn't allow them to use their own executive functioning. We as parents may be taking over too much which doesn’t allow our kids to learn how to be critical thinkers.


Critical thinking is the logical planning, evaluating, looking back, and looking forward in the process of making a decision. Parents are automatically doing this instead of letting their kids learn it naturally.

This can end up being a real problem for our kids!


Engaging our kids as critical thinkers is going to help kids across multiple measures. It's going to give them a sense of efficacy, a sense of autonomy, and of self-confidence because they are thinking things through and figuring things out on their own.


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Independence, Parent as teacher, ParentingElisabeth Stittcritical thinking, training
Do Your Kids Listen to You?
Do Your Kids Listen to You?

Too often we have kids that don't listen because we have trained them not to listen! We do that by making a request of them without following through. In that way, by the time our children are tweens or teens, they have a honed sense of how seriously they have to listen. They know you don't really mean it until you get loud or mad.

Instead, learn The S-U-S-T-A-I-N-E-D Connect to teach your kids to follow through without you ever having to raise your voice or sharpen your tone.


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Communication, Build Connections, ConsistencyElisabeth Stittcommunicaiton, sustained connect, listening