Put me in the Game, Coach!

What do successful CEOs, happy homemakers, and professional ballplayers have in common? They all benefit from having a coach to help them fulfill their goals and dreams. The techniques that enhance relationships and bring satisfaction for executives are also powerful tools for parenting.

Why do families need coaches?
Training and raising a child can be as challenging as managing a little league baseball team! As a parent, you may not have had a healthy role model to follow. You may have learned your parenting skills through trial and error. After all, parenthood doesn’t come with a training manual. Or does it? Parent coaching is a relatively new but rapidly growing vocation especially aimed at helping parents build and maintain close, healthy relationships with their children. The coaching process looks at circumstances in the family’s life and provides mentoring for parents and children. It teaches personal growth through honest assessment of one’s life and goals. It looks at obstacles or challenges, and then creates a course of action to make life more pleasant for the whole family. It creates a win-win solution thereby lessening conflict and trauma that may have to be dealt with in a counselor’s office later on.

Loss of Team Players
Today’s families are scattered across the globe. The network of close family ties are sometimes weakened or lost through divorce, relocation, job demands and other changes. Even when you do have close access to family members who have “been-there-done-that”, you may not get the best advice from them. For example, Aunt Suzie may tell you that your child is acting up because you divorced her father. She may tell you that you should have stayed married no matter what. The marriage may have seemed ideal to her. What your aunt doesn’t realize is that you and your daughter are both better off without the man who was verbally and emotionally abusing you. Coaching will look at the physical, emotional, social and spiritual aspects of a situation. A coach will support your decision and help you and your daughter adjust to being a single-parent family.

Social Struggles
Parenting is difficult due to our society. Competition for social and economic status may upset your child. Peer pressure and feeling accepted and safe at school may distract from the learning experience. The school system tries to force every child into a mold rather than honoring them as individuals. The media may challenge your values at home. Broken promises, unfaithful friends, gender and racial and sexual slurs may jeopardize your child's efforts to cope. The result may be surface as problems in family relationships, lowered self-esteem, and low grades in school. These problems indicate an area where coaching is needed, and where you may need to take action.

Unhealthy Pre-Season
A child’s beliefs about herself and the world are usually set in place by eight years of age. The role of most counselors is to solve the problems that arise as a result of unhealthy experiences in the earlier years. Well-meaning adults may underestimate the divine potential within each child. Sometimes parents try to mold their children into what they think they should be. This may destroy the child’s ability to hear and follow their internal guidance. Coaching helps both the parent and the child follow Divine guidance. This promotes well-being and healthy self-esteem.

Parents usually seek a counselor to help them change their child's bad behavior. By then the child or teenager may be angry and rebellious, and parents may be ready to give up. Many of these children end up on medication or in boarding schools without finding out why the child or teenager is misbehaving. We cannot change anyone else. The goal of parent coaching is to control or change the situation, not the child. Rather than trying to change our children, we should ask how we may change ourselves and overcome our own fears or lack of confidence.

Specific instances where parent coaching may be helpful
Your children fight constantly and you are tired of playing referee.

Fighting among brothers and sisters is common. It is normal in healthy families because it teaches kids how to get along with one another. As adults we have learned skills for settling our differences. We learned that by standing up for ourselves and butting heads with our siblings or playmates. A parent’s job is not to solve their children’s problems. It is to teach them how to solve their own problems. The aim of coaching is to help children take control of their lives and to think beyond the present moment. We all must realize that we are responsible for the impact our decisions have upon ourselves, the environment and other people.

Your child has a habit of lying.

Everyone wants to hear the truth about what a person is thinking, feeling or doing. No one likes being lied to. When children tell lies and make up stories the reason may be because they are afraid of telling the truth. Maybe he fears being punished. A coach will show you ways to express your disagreement about a particular behavior, while still showing love and acceptance to your child. This will help your child feel safe enough to tell the truth even if he disagrees with your expectation of him. A coach will also look for other reasons why the child feels insecure and distrustful of the world around them. The coach will also examine your method of dealing with the child. If a child feels criticized or fears punishment she will try to hide her actions. Letting the child know that there will always be love and acceptance will keep the channel open for honest communication.

Your daughter is disrespectful of you and other adults.

“Honor thy sons and daughters.” That sounds opposite to what we’ve been taught. Yes, children should be taught to honor their parents and elders, but how can a child learn to honor others if they have never received honor or respect? No matter how young the child is he deserves to be spoken to with reason and logic. Even if the child cannot understand all that you are saying, he will feel that he is being respected. Respect builds self-esteem and confidence, which are building blocks for becoming joyful, well-adjusted citizens who live in integrity with them and their environment.

What Should I Look for in a Parenting Coach?
A coach should be someone who is not associated with your family or workplace, someone who will help you see your own potential, set goals and choose action steps, and then hold you accountable to staying on track. A coach is able to connect you with people and information, and offer objective feedback or another perspective. They do not give counseling, but may refer you to a therapist if you need to work on certain issues or help you get “unstuck”. A coach should encourage you to empower and affirm yourself. A coach will always tell you the truth and expect you to do the same.

How Do I Get on the Team?
You don’t have to wait until problems arise to connect with a coach. In fact, having resources in place and being familiar with the coach ahead of time will ease any tension associated with getting help when it is required. In seeking a coach, find a discerning person who offers support and boosts your confidence while offering sound advice.

Perhaps you are ready to be a parenting coach. Caron B. Goode, Ed.D. DAPA, NCC, is the founder of the Academy for Coaching Parents International (ACPI). She is a family therapist, parenting author and mother who has developed a comprehensive training program for people interested in becoming coaches for parents. While the Academy’s parent coaches are not trained in specific methods, there is an underlying set of principles to guide you towards becoming involved in community parenting. See www.ACPI.com or phone 520-979-4470 for more information.

Return to Articles