Training and raising a child can be more challenging than running a retail business! When you were a child, your parents may not have provided a healthy role model.
You may have learned your parenting skills through trial and error.
After all, parenthood doesn't come with a training manual.
Then again, maybe it does.
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 addresses specific conditions in a family's life such as individual goals, obstacles or challenges and then creates a course of action to make life more pleasant for the whole family.
Coaching teaches empowerment and provides mentoring for parents and children.
When people learn how to resolve conflict with win-win solutions they may very well prevent trauma that would have to be dealt with in a counselor's office later on.
Unlike generations prior to the Baby Boomers, families today are scattered across the globe.
The network of community is frequently weakened or lost through separation, 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.
Best friends or parents may think they know what's best for you, but they often promote harsh cultural or old-fashioned ideas without regarding the child's personality, the family's long-term goals or other factors in a situation.
Coaching considers the person's mind, body, emotions and spirit as well as the social and cultural context of a situation.
In our aggressive society where competition for social and economic status concerns your child, your role as a parent is further complicated.
Peer pressure and feeling accepted and safe at school may distract from the learning experience.
The educational system as a whole tries to force every child into an identical mold rather than honoring individual learning styles.
All the while the media and entertainment industry challenge your values at home.
Broken promises, disloyal friends, gender and racial inequality and sexual innuendos may jeopardize your child's efforts to cope.
The result may manifest as conflict in family relationships, lowered self-esteem, and academic underachievement.
These difficulties indicate an area where coaching is needed, and where you may become proactive by helping your children make decisions by using their best judgment and problem solving skills and by following Divine inner guidance.
People usually seek a counselor to assist them in altering their child's disobedient behavior.
By the time help is sought the child or teenager may be angry and defiant, and parents may be exhausted or ready to give up.
Unfortunately many of these children end up on medication or in boarding schools without ever having discovered why the child or teenager is so frustrated.
Knowing that we cannot change anyone else, the goal of parent coaching is to control or change the situation, NOT the child.
Coaching will assist the parent in dealing with their own mistaken concepts and fears.
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.
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 advice, but may refer you to a therapist if you need to work on certain issues.
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.
The results are up to you, not the coach.
You are the player in your own life, and you must take action to make things happen.