What Age Can You Coach Kids From?

Can You Use These Techniques With Children? What is the age of the youngest person you can coach? These are two of the questions we are regularly asked during our Personal Evolutionary Coaching Programme.

As we all know, the last 12 months have hit a lot of kids really hard. They have missed the reassurance of a regular school routine, they have missed seeing and playing with their friends and they have missed the opportunity to run around in the playground and let off steam.

Over this weekend our 9 year old grandson Eithan stayed with us, but it was the first time he had stayed away from his Mum for over a year and he was unsettled at the prospect. He had also been getting into arguments with his sisters over trivial things that in the past wouldn't have bothered him.

When he got up on Sunday morning, we sat downstairs on the sofa while we had our morning drinks and I took the opportunity to ask him how he had been feeling over the last few weeks. 

He said I've been feeling sad nanny.

He also said there were things that were making him angry and he didn't want to be angry. I asked him to think about something specific that he was still angry about now and out of 10, with 10 being the angriest he could be, how angry did he feel?

He replied 9 out of 10.

That's a lot of anger for a 9 year old to be carrying around inside them... with no means to let that anger go. I felt so sad for him.

Whilst we were sitting there talking, I asked him if he wanted to do something fun which would mean that all of the anger and sadness that he was feeling would disappear right now.

He's used to his nanny and grandad doing weird stuff so he immediately said yes :-)

Right there and then in the moment I adapted our Time Line Resourcing? process so that Eithan could easily follow it and put a check in place to make sure that the old anger and sadness that Eithan had been feeling was completely gone and so that he would know for sure it had gone.

...and 10 minutes later, sure enough no more anger and no more sadness. 

Eithan said it was the best day ever! For me too - knowing that I had been able to help him. 

Is Eithan the youngest we have used the coaching techniques and interventions with? 

No - we have used them with much younger children than 9. In fact, kids are often easier to work with than adults!

Adults can sometimes become too conscious minded and not trust their Unconscious Minds at all - which requires a whole different skillset to when you are working with children to ensure that they get amazing results too.

That's what's so fantastic about being a Coach - every day is different and once you know how, you can use your knowledge and skills informally in the moment, to really help the people you love, just when they need it most.