Although I am influenced by many other fields, my approach to parent coaching is based in Peaceful Parenting. This is an authoritative (high expectations, high support) style of parenting that nurtures the relationship between parent and child. My style is also heavily influenced by Mindful Parenting and nervous system understanding and support.

Other parenting styles that are similar to Peaceful Parenting include gentle parenting, respectful parenting, responsive parenting, and conscious parenting. And if we deepen our understanding of both expectations and boundaries, we find that there is a lot of similarities between Peaceful Parenting and low-demand parenting as well.

When I was a young parent first starting down this Peaceful Parenting path, I found it incredibly hard. The “tips and tricks” that both coaches and other parents suggested rarely worked and they often made me feel a lot worse about myself as a parent. I could see that they just “didn’t get me,” but I didn’t understand why until I started learning about neurodivergence and the autonomic nervous system. It took that plus the meditation practice and embrace of “good enough parenting” that I got from Mindful Parenting to really transform my parenting so that it was both more effective AND more easeful.

As a coach, this experience has deeply contributed to my compassion for my clients as well as my commitment to and creativity in helping them discover unique ways to individualize the most important lessons of Peaceful Parenting so that they can apply them to their unique families.  We do this primarily through an understanding of the autonomic nervous system (both parent’s and child’s) and a four-part approach to addressing challenges that looks at: (1) what the parent needs in the moment; (2) what the child needs in the moment; (3) what the parent needs outside the moment; and (4) what the child needs outside the moment. 

Another thing (though it relates to the autonomic nervous system) that is pretty different about my approach is that my focus is on helping you do LESS, not MORE by shifting your focus from doing all of the things to doing what matters most. As part of this, I usually recommend that clients reduce their consumption of parenting content as much as possible (at least temporarily) so as to lessen the feeling that they “should” be doing more (or different) things and soothe the nervous system.

As the neurospicy and highly sensitive parent of two kids, at least one of whom is neurodivergent, I firmly believe that the answer is YES. But getting the right information and support is important and many parent coaches aren’t equipped to provide it (and may inadvertently cause harm) because they lack necessary knowledge and experience related to neurodivergence.

My education and experience has demonstrated the importance of really focusing on the Three Big Ideas of Peaceful Parenting (even if you don’t do all the other parts of it), abandoning the “tips and tricks” approach to parenting, and understanding how to “read” the autonomic nervous system so you can tailor your parenting to what is actually happening with yourself and your child in any given moment.

This is such a big question. I consider myself trauma-informed and cognizant of the risk of retraumatization, and somatic practices do make a somewhat regular appearance in my coaching sessions, but I am not a Somatic Experiencing Practitioner and I do not do trauma resolution with my clients. If that is something that interests you or that I think you would benefit from after our initial sessions, I can make a referral.

We can absolutely work together. The majority of my clients are mothers who work with me independently, without their partner. (About 25% of the families I work with do 1:2 sessions with me and both main caregivers and/or both parents receive individual coaching.) Although Peaceful Parenting is most effective when both parents do it, it’s important for the “more interested” parent to remember three things:

1. Your relationship with your child is unique to the two of you and does not depend on your parenting partner.

2. You and your parenting partner probably have more in common than you think when it comes to your parenting hopes and goals—even if your current ways of getting there are very different.

3. Our partners—much like our children—learn through modeling. So watching you parent your child in this manner will impact the way they parent your children as well.

So don’t try to convince your partner. Though if they are curious, they can join you for one or more of your sessions. Or you can do what one of my clients did for her on-board-but-not-getting-coaching husband and buy them some sessions.

Generally speaking (and this is a generalization), therapy is backward-looking and coaching is forward-looking. Of course, effectively moving forward often requires addressing the past, so the past will come up (in some cases frequently) in parent coaching. This includes your childhood and earlier experiences, as well as those of your child(ren). But we focus on the future and what you can start doing differently now to change what isn’t working for you and your child.

After a lot of thought and reflection on my own experience as a coaching client, I decided that I primarily would work with families long-term instead of as a “one-off.” Coaching is fundamentally different than therapy in that people rarely go to therapists for a single session. Yet it is very common to do so with parent coaches. The problems is that this keeps us in “doing mode” and looking for the answer outside ourselves, when what we really need is to focus more on the “being mode” and strengthening our connection to our intuition so that we don’t stay dependent on parent coaches and other outside experts.

Longer term engagements—at least in the beginning—give parents the opportunity to really relax into the supportive, coregulatory, coaching relationship so that they can better support their children. Then, after the initial 2-3 month engagement, individual sessions become more useful.

Of course, I recognize that signing up for a longer engagement can feel scary. That’s why I offer free discovery calls to potential clients. In these 30-minute calls we get to know each other a little better so that we know whether we are right for each and whether I am likely to be able to help you.

I’m a huge proponent of therapy (including for children) but the reality is that most kids spend 20+ times as much time with their parents each week as they do with a therapist. This means that therapy is supplemental to parenting and not a replacement for it.

(Also, does your child need to be fixed? Or do they need more support? Or perhaps you need more support so that it doesn’t feel like they need to change in order for you to thrive.)

I don’t know. Some would say there isn’t and I will occasionally refer to myself as a parenting coach. But primarily, I call myself a parent coach because my focus isn't just on your parenting; it's also on you (a person who just happens to be a parent) and how I can support you to show up the way that you want—a change that will radiate out to other areas of your life.

I’ve done my best to foresee your questions, but I am sure I missed something. So if you have anything else you’d like to know, you can send me a message or book a call to see what I say.