Coaching as a Parenting Technique

I discovered that the power of Coaching can be life-altering not just as a professional tool but in my personal life as well. I am two-thirds into my journey as an ACC Trainee Coach and already the coaching mindset has transformed my relationships. Especially the one with my daughter.

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It all started shortly after I had read a book called “The Humble Inquiry” as part of my training. A wonderful book, which at its core, lays out the power of asking instead of telling. It has several real-life situations illustrated where asking would have been a better option than telling. One, in particular, resonated with me. It involves a father who reacts angrily to his daughter when he assumes that she is in his room to disturb him.

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So, my daughter came to me one evening looking slightly sheepish. She had missed going to her advanced math class for the second time that week.

Now, my usual reaction as a parent in this situation would have been to tell her off and lecture her about responsibility. And needless to say, it would have ended in tears and resentment on her part. But this time, I took a pause and thought, maybe I should try using a few of the techniques I had learned in the past few weeks to see if this could be handled better. I asked her calmly, what made her miss the class again. Once we narrowed down the reasons, I asked her what she wanted to do about it. She came up with a couple of ideas which she very willingly implemented. She hasn't missed a class since.

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This incident was an eye-opener to me as it was the first time I had used coaching as part of my parenting and I realized that it was, by far, the most effective tool I had as a parent. I saw at once that not only did it have the power to make individual conversations with my child amiable and productive, it could also help build her trust in me and in doing so, strengthen our bond as she enters her teenage years.

Children face many challenges in today’s world bombarded as they are by an onslaught of information twenty hours a day. They face constant peer pressure of a kind not seen ever before. Traditional parenting has usually involved the parent acting either as a teacher or at best as a mentor. Both these stances have as their underlying premise, the assumption that the parent has all the knowledge needed in the situation and he/she should tell the child what to do. This may work when the child is very young, but as they transition into teenage and young adulthood, the number of things about them that a parent will not know will inevitably increase. The child starts to explore the world independently and develops an identity as an individual.

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Ironically, during these crucial transition periods, when the child starts to pull away from parents is exactly when intimacy is most needed. Coaching is the tool that can help accomplish this since at its core, coaching is a peer-to-peer interaction. By adopting this stance, the parent is silently acknowledging that the child has more knowledge of their situation, that the child has the answer to a dilemma within them, and that they are fully capable of finding it themselves.

What better way to help them learn to trust their instincts, handle their emotions, deal with crises and build self-esteem?

Author Name - Chandrika Josyula