Have you ever considered being a Parenting Coach?

Have you ever considered being a Parenting Coach?

My experience as a mother of an adult today remits me back to the challenges that we had on his teenage years.  One thought that always crossed my mind was, did I do a good job?  However, thinking back I see that our relationship was always blessed with great communication.

In the past couple of years, I have geared my studies towards life coaching and my current work with parents on a one-on-one basis showed me that communication was the greatest handicap of parenting today.  In May 2011, we just facilitated a seminar for 32 parents called “The Necessary Tools for a Healthy Parent/Children Communication” at Life Choice Program Education.  The feedback was overwhelming; it showed that the parents are very interested in learning about technique and skills that will facilitate their communication with their children.  Over 70% agree that effective communication is the number one tool to have a good relationship with people, parents, and children.  The coach provides many strategies to help parents improve their communication with everyone involved.

The relationship between parents and coaches is warm, trustful and honest.  When this symbiosis comes into play, the parents allow themselves to speak freely about their feelings and emotions, and when a professional Coach is ready to actively listen to them, it can guide them into an array of strategic tools that can improve their knowledge about their own feelings, and in return allowing parents to be more honest with their children, earning their respect and trust, and letting the miscommunications to naturally diminish.

Conflicts and frustrations are the enemies as they are not the true feelings that should be taken into account when dealing with children.  Parents need to focus on issues and the awakening of this new conscience, is facilitated by a coaching session that permitted the parent to see and deal with their own issues and consequently feelings, placing them out of the way at the moment of communication with the children.  The coaching process make parents feel more relaxed, secure, motivated and ready to take on the task at hand.

When is the most difficult time you face when raising your children?  The overall consensus is that teenage years are the most complex, as the children are no longer subject to parenting direct orientation and growing into an adult with their own choices and identity. 

When our children become teenagers, many changes occur in our lives, marriages, divorces, death in the family, newborns, social influences, and not to forget hormonal changes to both, children and mothers that may occur simultaneously.  Considering all those elements, Parenting Coaching is an effective way to give an opportunity for the self-development of parents, with this knew acquired knowledge of themselves, parents are now ready to share, inspire and be aware of what is going on in their children’s lives; with this, building a stable relationship with their children that will than spruce up in to a high value adult.

Parenting coaching is not only about the children, nevertheless it is a great experience to all involved as human beings.  The improvement of tools and techniques allow a much healthier communication in their personal life and/or their family life. The benefits of Parenting Coaching are to help parents learn how to respect and be respected, reflect about their actions, focus on what is missing in their relationship, as well as have some orientation on how to guide and understand their children.  Parenting Coaching will encourage parents to build up their self-esteem and confidence, as well as to deliver their values and beliefs to their children with love.

Madeleine Cruz

Mod IV - July  2011.

Do you know what it is to be creative?

The word creativity simply means an attitude of the will to do or make something different.

To some people to be creative it is easy, to others is almost impossible, or better said is not so natural for them.  Sometimes we ask ourselves when we see a very creative person: “how can he be so creative?”

Many times this generates in us some frustration for not been able to act creatively. However, the good news is that creativity is part of us, we carry it in our essence and we just need to develop it. But, how can we do it?

Taking notes – you can have a small notebook to take notes of anything that you see different or calls your attention, some novelty, what comes to your mind, a word, a text, a music, take notes so later on you can organize your ideas.

Observe everything around you – Observe the people, the environment, what you can learn or the ideas that you can take from what you listen, from what is been taught to you – active listening is one of the great tools for been more creative.

Don´t limit yourself – go forward with curiosity and do not limit yourself only to your knowledge, research complementary information, search additional details about what you heard or read. Sometimes the unknown sounds unattractive because you don´t know it, the interest to know something unknown can give you the chance to have new ideas.

Get out from your routine – search from something different than what you are used to do regularly, something that you have not done yet! This helps you to have new ideas or re-think about the ones you already have.

Be optimistic – Don´t see anything as the problem, use your creativity (imagination), and use your ideas to focus on the solution. For example, in times of economic crisis one can reduce its cost, its expenses and to do that we need to be creative and with this creativity we can do something different and good for society. Many successful organizations started in times of economic crisis.

Share your ideas – Think Win + Win, you win, I win, we all win! – Sometimes you can share your ideas with other creative people and they can support you, or they might want to build something better with you. Don’t be afraid; combine your ideas with others.

When a person is open to learn, to listen, to research, to share, to search, to innovate… this person is creative and will obtain much success in life! Why not just do it?

Madeleine Cruz