Great question! A parenting coach is a professional who will work with you to provide guidance and support as you focus on your relationships and interactions with your kids. A parenting coach can help you better understand your kids’ behaviors and problem solve challenges like transitions, limit setting, aggression, sibling issues, and more.

Umm…no. Seriously. We are regular parents who also have a lot of experience and training in understanding young children and guiding parents who are figuring out how to navigate this craziest and most important job ever. We are in the trenches with you. Some days our kids struggle, some days we struggle.

Definitely not! Let’s be honest – does anybody want someone coming into their home and critiquing their parenting practices? We certainly don’t! We know that parenting isn’t about running through a checklist of “good” and “bad” practices, and we aren’t here to assign you a grade. Our coaching sessions will be a conversation, or series of conversations, where we learn about your challenges and get to know your circumstances, interactions, and personalities. You’ll tell your story, and together we will develop a parenting plan with some very concrete strategies and next steps.

Relationship-based parenting is really just a fancy-ish way of saying that the most important parenting tool that we have is our connection to our children. When we feel calm and connected, our children tend to feel calm and connected. When we are able to understand and regulate our emotions, our children start to learn how to understand and regulate their emotions. When we approach our children with empathy and respect, they learn how to respond with empathy and respect.

That’s true. Good point. This is where we can help. If these are your goals, then we can figure out where you are in this process and talk about specific actions, words, limits etc. that will help you and your family get closer to where you want to be.

The truth is, traditional consequences (i.e., punishments) like isolation (time out, being sent to their room), loss of privileges, etc. are rarely effective for eliminating behaviors in the long term. They may stop that behavior in that moment, but they haven’t really done anything to address the root causes of the struggles. In our experience, most behaviors or challenges that our kids have are connected to our limit setting. Either we haven’t set the limits clearly or confidently enough, or we’ve set very strong limits without making a connection first.

Well, no. The strategies that we focus on are long term solutions. They will lead to significantly more overall peace, calm, security, and confidence, but they are NOT quick-fix Super Nanny style gimmicks. In fact, you might as well call us the Anti-Super-Nanny. We will not make any traffic lights, time out chairs, or sticker chart systems for you to manage or implement. We will provide you with practical, meaningful language, actions, and support so you are not reliant on external motivators or consequences.

Ah…the mighty temper tantrum. We knew you were going to ask that. So, a temper tantrum – even an incredibly intense, screaming, crying, flailing-on-the-floor-in-Target one – is actually not a misbehavior. Hard to believe, we know. But a temper tantrum is a very normal, developmentally appropriate way for a young child to express a variety of different emotions. While we know that temper tantrums are not convenient, pleasant, or comfortable, we need to stay as calm, unruffled, and open-hearted as possible as our kids work through their feelings. Even the big ones. Especially the big ones.

We’re here to help when you feel like it’s time to try something different, but you don’t really know what that is. When you know that traditional discipline strategies don’t work for you and your family, but you aren’t sure what will. When it seems like you have been struggling with the same issue again and again, and you feel stressed out, unhappy, guilty, or frustrated. We can help you work through and tweak little issues or start down the path to a major overhaul. Change is hard. Parenting is hard. We can do this with you.

Contact us! Click here to tell us a little bit about your situation and your family. Within 1-2 business days, one of our coaches will be in touch to set up our conversation. We will go from there! We look forward to working with you!

Yes! We love love love to present to groups of parents, teachers, grandparents, caregivers, and more. We can come to your meeting, library, church, synagogue, mosque, school, and even (our favorite!) your home! Contact us here to learn more about our Parent Ed topics and to schedule your presentation.