Are you feeling overwhelmed by parenting lately? Perhaps a bit lost?
It’s no secret that this parenting gig is tricky. No matter how prepared we think we are, sometimes our babies surprise us. They come to us with their own uniqueness, and rarely, if ever, does everything go according to plan.
Sometimes our children arrive to our arms with considerations we did not foresee such as ADHD, mental health conditions, neurodiversity, or even trauma. Sometimes their behavior baffles us so completely that we exhaust all efforts and feel we have nowhere to turn. And then, when our children hold up the mirror to us and show us all the parts of ourselves, the realization that we have growth to do can be daunting.
This is where parent coaches come in.
A parent coach is specially trained to help parents decode not only their children’s behavior, but also their own triggers. They can teach you how to connect playfully with your children while setting and maintaining firm, respectful and consistent boundaries, free from punishment, shame, and pain.
How Can a Coach Help Me?
A parent coach can be an important source of information and support so that you can provide the best care for your child. Here are some different ways our coaches can help you.
Understanding Your Child’s Development
Understanding child development and the basics in neuroscience as well as up-to-date research is crucial to child-rearing, yet many parents do not readily have this information. Knowing where your child stands developmentally helps you create appropriate boundaries and manage your expectations which reduces power struggles and frustration.
Many times, the behaviors we consider to be defiant or deliberate are simply development. When we have information, it prepares us to approach each situation with knowledge and understanding. It changes our perspective about our children, thereby shifting how we respond to their behavior. A parent coach can teach you what is developmentally appropriate and how best to guide your unique child through their unique developmental process.
Decoding Behavior
When we were growing up, most of our parents didn’t consider why we were behaving the way we were. They simply looked at the behavior and decided whether or not we deserved a punishment. Now we know that behavior is a symptom, not the problem.
A parent coach can help you decipher what your child’s behavior is communicating. They can help you get to the source of the problem and heal it from the inside out.
Behavior management systems are exhausting and ineffective. Raising children with a system of rewards and punishments means that we often miss the true problem behind their behavior. Focusing on behavior alone means we miss seeing the full human being that has been entrusted to our care. We miss seeing their heart, their struggles, and sometimes even their pain.
When we switch the lens to seeing behavior as a symptom, we are able to focus on the whole child. A parent coach can help you switch that lens and learn to look for the reason behind the actions.
Reparenting Yourself
Few of us escape childhood without any wounds. Author Mitch Albom once said, “Youth, like pristine glass, absorbs the prints of its handlers. Some parents smudge, others crack, a few shatter childhoods completely into jagged little pieces, beyond repair.”
Even if you are one of the lucky ones that escaped with a few smudges, those smudges can still distort how we see ourselves and our kids. We can reparent our inner child in our adulthood to bring our shadows to the light and heal from childhood trauma.
All of us have some inner work to do. Author and speaker Lu Hanessian said, “Unpack your baggage so your kids don’t have to carry it.”
A parent coach can help you unpack this baggage.
How Do I Get Coaching?
Our coaches will work with you one-on-one to:
- Calm the chaos, and manage tantrums and meltdowns.
- Internalize the science behind connection-based discipline and positive parenting.
- Implement playful strategies for nurturing social and emotional skills in your children.
Parenting is hard. You’ve got this, and we’ve got you.
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