by Dr. Caron Goode | Jan 30, 2017 | Understanding Your Child
Your child becomes a teenager and parenting can suddenly turn into a frustrating experience. You are understanding your child from a different viewpoint in the circle of life. You could observe:
- That the harmony is gone in your relationship.
- You find yourself in disagreement with your child.
- You feel the so-called generation gap grew.
Yes, your child is changing, but the basic temperament is still there. Understanding your teen is still the key to having a harmonious relationship. These ten tips for understanding your teen and dealing with the new brain wiring will help you stay centered as a heartwise® parent.
While you used to pal around with your child when he or she was younger, you now have to set boundaries between your role as a parent or a friend.
1.Help stabilize the changes.
At this stage, you are primarily the circumspect parent who will listen, negotiate boundaries and behaviors, and stand steadfast in your expectations. Doing so helps stabilize all the changes the adolescent experiences. Friends can be found, but good parenting is a rare commodity these days.
2. Become Involved
Understanding your child as a teen means becoming involved while your schedule and life remain just as busy. Being involved is finding the time to be with them. Being involved means knowing where they are at all times and establishing communication protocols.
Even more important are the conversations about life your teen appreciates. These conversations open opportunities to understanding your child, as their thoughts and feelings change each day, disappear, and flare again: Listen to the what your child tells you about their life events. You will glean their thoughts and feelings so that they will be at ease coming to you if they are in trouble.
3. Train Teens in Accountability Skills
You as the parent, are responsible for preparing your child for adult life for as long as they live under your roof.
If they want something, exert the effort to achieve it or get it.
Being responsible for communication, earned expenses, and tasks is now their domain.
Money is not the important asset. Rather, qualities about handling money are what matters.
As a parent, you can help here by providing their allowance for completed jobs, but they must do their part. You are training them to survive in a competitive world.
4. Listen To Them
The teen years are crucial years for understanding your child. Teens expect you to hear them and decipher what they need or want. You may feel like judgments arise surrounding teen activities, finances, and studies. Don’t worry because 99% of the job is listening to them and understanding what they want.
5. Explain Your Viewpoint
By letting teens know the reasons for any decisions you make, you empower them to make their choices. Offering them a reason, even if it considered lame by your teen, helps them review their personal choices. For example
Concern for their safety is why you establish a mutually agreed on curfew.
Your need to know where they are if they leave one place for a new destination requires a phone call to know they are safe and capable of holding their own among peers.
6. Tune In
Understanding your child occurs when you are
listening to their kind of music
keeping tabs on what activities they are involved in
Knowing the names of their friends
7. Be Flexible
Setting agreed-upon rules with your teen is always healthy. However, exceptions to rules always occur. Whether you are flexible enough to bend the rules requires discussion with your teen. Lay the groundwork for those instances when rules can be adjusted.
8. Share Your Interest With Your Child
Sharing interests with your child means you better understand them You learn together and share your experiences. You need to stay connected with your child through those teen arguments.
9. Keep Talking Even If Your Teen Is Not Listening
Teenagers do listen to their parents. While they may argue with you, your advice is well-entrenched in their minds. After all, you did raise them. Although they pretend passivity with what you say, the truth is that your advice has influence.
Be a Certified Coach
by Dr. Caron Goode | Jan 8, 2017 | Certified-Parent-Coach
Five Years From Now?
It is important to have a vision of your future when you design your parent coach business plan and marketing strategy as a parent coach. Here is a checklist to spark innovative thoughts for your business.
- How big do you want your business to grow?
- How much time can you devote to it now, and five years from now?
- What hours of the day do you want to work now, and once your business is going?
- Are you going to take phone calls all hours of the day and night?
- Are you going to take evening clients? In parent coaching, many clients will want evening or weekend appointments. Can you accommodate them?
- What hours do you want to relax with your family?
Take the time to write down a schedule of your ideal week, including time for relaxation and taking care of your health. Whether you are single or married, whether your children are in college or are toddlers, come up with a personalized design that allows you to meet your family obligations and your own needs to relax and grow as a person.
If your best moments come when you are in nature, plan your week so you have that time to spend in nature and to reconnect with yourself. Don’t let go of what most satisfies your own soul because of business obligations.
As a coach to families, people regard you as a role model. You have to model a healthy integration of work and family for your clients. If you don’t succeed, how can you expect help others succeed?
In the beginning being a parent coach you will focus primary energy into marketing and networking, which are usually unpaid tasks to build into your business plan.
Fill your heart and mind with optimism as you network and market your parent coaching practice. Your positive attitude and caring are what attract people to work with a parent coach. The image you reflect when you show up is much more important than any piece of sheepskin.
When small businesses fail, it is usually because of lack of planning and design. When you create your coaching business, be sure you have realistic expectations about how much time you can devote to it now and in the future. Develop a schedule for today and five years from now. If you work out of your house, build clear separations between your personal life and your business. Do this by only working certain hours, shutting the business down regularly for personal time, and by having a work place clearly separate from your living area.
Now if you are looking right ahead into the future, it’s now the time to take step toward that goal or desired future. If you are not a parent coaching already, look into our certifications for parent coaching but if you are already a parent coach and you are looking for someone to show you all the steps to make your coaching business successful, signup for our course Successful Business Set-up in systemized steps to skyrocket your startup today.
Successful Business Set-up in systemized steps
certifications for parent coaching
by Dr. Caron Goode | Jan 5, 2017 | Certified-Parent-Coach
Wouldn’t the world be an incredibly effective place if we viewed each other as competent and knowing? Perhaps this ideal behind the parent coaching movement is the appropriate mindset and intention to help parents fulfill their roles consciously and parent effectively.
In parent coaching, the underlying assumption is that the client is well and resourceful and can handle his or her life. In psychotherapy, the assumption is to treat the symptoms and underlying causes. Both coaching and also psychotherapy or counseling can play a role in our lives depending upon our abilities to manage our emotions and our realities.
For example, a client may enter psychotherapy because he gets into fights at work with his supervisor. After a few sessions in which he brings up his past and talks about his parents, the client realizes that he is repeating problems he had with his parents with his boss. In fact, he realizes that he has deliberately chosen a boss who reminds him of his father.
If this same client were to hire a coach, the coach would ask empowering questions and challenge his thinking about handling the boss issues. A coach does not delve into a client’s past, but focuses on the present time, issue or goal.
“Some coaches do have a background as therapists and are thrilled to switch from the model of fixing symptoms to empowering others to move ahead with life. I was a licensed therapist, and I like coaching better. In coaching, the client is whole, resourceful, and ready for change. Yet, the model in therapy is that the client is broken.”
…Mark Brandenberg
In coaching, the WHY is not important! Coaches deal with the HOW. Coaches intervene all the time with advice, encouragement and expertise!
As Coach Brandenburg said, “As a therapist, I used to only listen and never give my opinion. Sometimes I felt as if I could be replaced by a mannequin.”
“Therapy is about looking backwards. Coaching is about working with today. We deal with what is now”.
… Jill Herman
Coaches review a client’s strengths and focus on them. The medical/psychological establishment focuses on problems and pathology. We look at wellness and not what is broken. If a coach finds a true pathology, the coach refers that person to a psychologist or other appropriate specialist. Troubled persons with long-standing problems may not think rationally and that is why coaches refer them.
In coaching, the model is that the client is whole and wants to achieve goals. He is open to advice and discussion, and looking to the future, not the past.
