To watch the video version of this post about Why You Need A Parenting Coach, click here.
September’s always busy for me because kids are going back to daycare, preschool and kindergarten and usually this is when parents start to notice new behaviour issues. In the past month in ParentAbility, we have had an overwhelming number of newer members mentioning that when their child started having behaviour issues many didn’t know what to do, or where to even start so often they went to the only person that they thought could help them – their child’s general practitioner or paediatrician. And while going to your paediatrician is never a bad place to start to eliminate medical concerns, it’s probably not going to get you the support that you need to support your child’s behavioural learning.
Why Doctors Are Not Effective Parenting Coaches
A lot of people think that because doctors are specialists in the physiological aspects of growing and developing, they are also qualified to speak to mental development. Doctors are specialists in illness and disease. They’re not specialists in child development or behaviour. I’ve talked to a lot of doctors in a lot of different fields with a lot of different specialities, and every single one of them has expressed to me how little education they actually get on behaviour and child development in medical school. Depending on their speciality they might get one or two classes- even paediatricians!
The Goal of A Parenting Coach Partner
My education IS specifically in child development and how behaviour is built so the system I teach you in ParentAbility is to identify the root causes of behaviour. The objective is to inventory everything that could be stressing your child and to find the problem – figure out what is causing them stress and where the behaviour is originating from. Sometimes when we do that inventory and we start implementing strategies, we realise that there’s a deeper layer to this and you need to expand your team. But that is 100% what I am there for- to listen to what is going on and use my experience in early intervention and child development to put that puzzle together WITH you.
When You Should Seek Out A Coach
There are so many kids who fall into this crack: the behaviour is disruptive, it’s affecting their participation with their peers, in their community, and in the family. But it’s not disruptive enough to warrant a medical diagnosis. Nothing is “wrong” and yet nothing is “right” either. And you, as a parent, are just trying to put together this puzzle- but you don’t have any guidance.
The time to seek out the support of a parenting coach is when you realise this is not okay. You are not fine. They are not fine. There is a problem, and you don’t know how to solve it. It doesn’t really matter what end of the spectrum you’re on- whether you’re just starting to look into getting support and you’re overwhelmed and don’t know where to go either because this has been building at home or because a teacher of some kind has dropped it in your lap or whether you’ve already got a bunch of puzzle pieces- you’ve already got the beginnings of a team- and you can’t for the life of you figure out how to put them together- ParentAbility is the hub that connects all the different parts together, so that you’re not trying to sit at home and figure it out all by yourself.
So if you’re like YES- I need strategies! The first thing I’d suggest you do is grab my scripts for managing crazy-making behaviour. That is going to give you 10 specific strategies to address the behaviours my Parenting Posse group told me were the 10 behaviours that drive them MOST up the wall. They’re totally free- and they’ll just give you a bit of a taste of how we might address the symptoms we were talking about. Your next step would be to join us in my free Misbehaviour-Proof class– that will speak more to the root issues I mentioned. And FINALLY, join us in ParentAbility to get a customized game-plan in place.
