The Guide for Parent Coaching

Coaching is a reciprocal process between a coach and learner comprised of a series of conversations focused on mutually agreed upon outcomes (Flaherty, 1999; Kinlaw, 1999). The conversations promote self-discovery and result in competence and mastery of desired skills for both the learners and child (Doyle, 1999; Dunst, Herter & Shields, 2000).

Behind the coaching process stands the belief that both the parent and child will benefit. The processes that occur during the coaching sessions parallel the processes that take place between the parent and child. The dialogue between the coach and learner during each session serve as a model for the dialogue between the parent and child. Just as the coach allows the parent to think deeply about himself, so too, the parent allows the child to think deeply about him/herself. In this way, the parent and child carry on a deep, intrinsic, and essential conversation that forms a special, human bond between them.

The coach gives the strength, the energy, and the inspiration to the parent/learner so that he/she can engage in this parallel process together with the child. The expectation is that the child will be directly influenced and the parent will become the "parent/coach" of the child. The coach focuses on strengths, possibilities, and resources while providing positive reinforcement, appreciation, and practice.

Occasionally, the lack of knowledge and difficulty in understanding the disability prevent the parent from doing the right thing. For example, a parent whose child has ADD or difficulty reading, which prevents him from understanding and the parent expects from the child to sit and do his homework. At times the parent understands the child's difficulty (why), he understands what needs to be done (what), but he doesn't know how to act (how). When the coach analyzes the details with the parent, they focus on a link that requires a deeper understanding, knowledge, and tools in order to make more out of the same situation.

The amount of progress depends on the degree of suitability between the steps that the parent takes and the steps that the child is able to take. If the parent moves ahead too quickly, then the child is left behind. The parent learns how to act according to the child's strengths and weaknesses, learns when the child is in need of a "strong" parent and when the child is in need of  "weak" parent, who is able to express his emotions and worries.

Parent coaching at Nitzan Israel is a short-term intervention in which the coach accompanies the learner/parent through a process of self reflection, and as a result of such, helps him to improve his skills and abilities, to redesign behavioral patterns, to deal with crises and conflicts and to improve relationships through the different cycles of life. The goal is to move away from feelings of hopelessness and reoccurring failures to a place where one can experience successes that strengthen one's faith and hope. Only then can one begin to create a basis for a different sort of dialogue, one that flows, in which there is a conversation between the parent and his child.

The coach turns attention to success, clarifies how it can be achieved, helps the parent define for himself how he sees success, and to consider what the child sees as success. It's likely that each one will see something different, but the goal is to see the picture as it is projected from the point of view of the parent and the child. In the coaching process, the parent learns to be questioning with himself, with his child, with his family, surrounding environment, when everyone is acting optimally and completely; then, this experience becomes powerful for the learner/parent.

The goal is to broaden the parent's ability to self-contemplate in order that he can see in even the small success movement of additional success, when each one of the successes motivates and strengthens the success that comes afterwards.