Do you find yourself yelling and getting stressed out? Wanting a better connection with your kids?
You have just yelled at your kids for the 100th time today to do something, and once again they are not listening. You have lost it...you yell "you never listen to me." Even that they manage to ignore, or maybe they yell back, "I am listening." Sound familiar? This parenting thing is really challenging.
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I have been working with children and families for well over 10 years. I absolutely adore working with children. However, I have realized that I can make a bigger impact with working with parents. When I work with a child, I have 45 minutes in a week to connect and make change, when I give parents they skills to use at home, you have all the time to connect to make really meaningful changes.
Parent coaching is slightly different than individual therapy. In a parent coaching session, we will be looking at the family dynamics and I will be giving you lots and lots of practical strategies to implement at home. We don't single anyone out as the "problem," rather we focus on solutions to what is not working.
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Three Areas we address
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1. We will be looking at your triggers as a parent. I'm sure your children know them all to well, do you know what they are? Working together we will put together a coping skills plan for how you will manage your triggers when they happen...and they will. This is also where we will look at where your boundaries are and how to hold those boundaries with your children.
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2. Connection, Connection, Connection! When we want our children to do something, we must connect with them first. There are so many ways of doing this, one of my favorites that I use with my own toddler is choice and humor. For example, maybe he is playing with blocks and it's getting late so we need to transition to bath I might say to him, "oh wow, you are having so much fun playing with those blocks, it took so much concentration to build it so high. It's time to say goodnight to the blocks, you can play with them again as soon as you wake up in the morning! How would you like to go to the bath: Fly or jump?" There is so much in this approach I use. First, I am really seeing him and the activity he is doing, I'm acknowledging how much fun it is as well. We are also looking to the next "YES," the morning when he can play again. Then I'm giving him a choice. This is so so important to offer some sort of control over an insignificant part of the activity (fly or jump). Finally, I'm making the choices kind of silly and fun. This is a way we can connect during the transition.
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3. Lots of Practical Strategies and the rational for how these strategies work.
We will accomplish so much in so little time!
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Parent Coaching is typically 4-8 sessions. It is a very time limited approach where you will see results very quickly when you begin implementing the strategies we discuss.
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Let's connect so you can begin having a happier, healthier relationship with your children :)
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