Parent Coaching
Do You Need Help Navigating The Complexities Of Parenthood?
Are you a loving parent or guardian who feels stressed out or overwhelmed by all the pressure, expectations, and responsibilities of parenthood? Do you have trouble figuring out the best way to support your child while still caring for yourself and the rest of your family?
Perhaps you’re hoping to make life easier for a little one who struggles with ADHD, Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), or Sensory Processing Disorder (SPD).
Or maybe you’re considering coaching because you were hurt in the past and you don’t want your own fear, insecurity, and childhood trauma to influence your parenting.
It’s True, Raising Kids Is A Full-Time Job—And It’s Seldom Easy
As parents, we can be so over-booked that there are never enough hours in the day to get it all done. Between working, picking up children, attending functions, getting food on the table, and putting little ones to bed, parents in modern times are more stressed out than ever.
The slightest glitch in the schedule, like a sick kid or canceled daycare, can monkey up carefully orchestrated routines. You have to give them exciting adventures, sign them up for every sport and activity to "broaden their horizons,” and prep them for college at age 10.
All of this puts a tremendous strain on parents. Fortunately, our parent coaching services at Bozeman Counseling Center are designed to offer you relief from the constant stress while providing you with concrete strategies for navigating your child’s development.
Are you ready to schedule or have any questions? Send us a message
Parenthood Can Be A Complicated Journey For Anyone
Unfortunately, kids don’t come with manuals, so much of parenthood is about learning and growing with your child. Yet, most people still believe that parenting skills and emotional stability should come naturally if you truly are a “good” mother or father.
The reality is most parents struggle to figure out how to accommodate the unique needs of both their child and the family as a whole. As children move through different developmental stages, their needs change too, creating confusion, self-doubt, and frustration for parents who wonder where they’re going wrong. But it makes sense—what works for a four-year-old probably won’t fly with a broody teenager.
So…being a good parent really is a learning experience.
We All Want To Be The Best Parents We Can Be
Many people discover when they have kids that they want to do things differently than how they were raised, which is a great thing to strive for. However, most folks simply don’t have the tools to do that.
They turn to TikTok videos, YouTube, and personal blogs looking for guidance only to feel more inadequate and less confident in their parenting. Some people end up helplessly mirroring the same flawed relational and behavioral patterns modeled in their own childhood.
Working with a counselor, in contrast, helps you set reasonable expectations for yourself and your goals for parenting. Coaching gives you strategies for managing stress, support for overcoming feelings of doubt, and skills for making life easier for you, your child, and the whole family.
Learning About Yourself Is Often The Biggest Part Of Parent Coaching
Building parenting skills and acquiring tools can be incredibly beneficial—but becoming a great parent starts with figuring out your own stuff.
That knowledge and self-awareness serve as a foundation for effective parenting that prevents you from repeating past patterns or projecting unresolved fears onto your own children. By exploring your authentic self and learning to parent from there, you’ll find yourself in a better position to support your child and be the parent you want to be.
Good parenting also includes helping children connect with their authentic selves rather than expecting them to conform to ideas of how they “should be.” This means that your approach to parenting has to evolve simultaneously with your child’s growth and progress.
Our parent coaching services at Bozeman Counseling Center are designed to accomplish both of these crucial goals. We’ll help you sort through and resolve any past issues that might be impacting how you raise your child. You can build strong parenting skills for overcoming present challenges, and you’ll become more adaptable to changes throughout your child's development.
What Is The Parent Coaching Experience Like?
Our parent coaching approach gives you a chance to step back and explore the stress, anxiety, and overwhelm that’s giving you problems. We want to help you understand your emotional triggers so you can respond better to your child’s behavior. And we’ll work on identifying areas where you feel challenged (maybe you’re not a morning person, but you still have to get the kids to school).
At the same time, we’ll provide you with concrete ideas and tools for supporting your child with everything from regulating their behaviors and emotions to planning and working toward goals.
Though we understand the importance of secure attachments between parent and child, we also value setting healthy boundaries and realistic expectations for parents.
For instance, in Bozeman, there can be a tremendous amount of pressure for parents to provide their kids with expensive lessons, lavish adventures, and the list goes on. When parents can’t accommodate those things, it can cause guilt and feelings of inadequacy. So, part of what we do also involves avoiding the parent guilt trap.
How Can Coaching For Parents Offer Support?
Just as each child has unique needs, each parent faces unique challenges, so we tailor our counseling services to each person’s situation.
Some of the things we can work on include:
Teaching effective communication skills to use with kids
Practicing self-care, learning to ask for help, and saying “No”
Preventing childhood trauma from creeping into parenting
Reducing stress, overwhelm, and feelings of shame or guilt
Improving client’s primary relationship through effective co-parenting
We help parents of toddlers learn how to handle temper tantrums, and we show parents of teenagers what an effective curfew can look like. When providing counseling for special needs parents, we offer extra tools to help with things like sensory issues, learning difficulties, and rejection sensitivity.
Raising A Child Isn’t Easy, But We’re Here To Help
Even though you don't get a handbook or operations manual for raising a child, you can develop the skills and confidence to parent your child in a way that feels empowering and fulfilling. Parent coaching helps you learn about yourself and grow at the same time. It can be a double win where your child benefits from your personal growth and development—and you benefit from knowing you have the insight, tools, and support needed to be the parent you want to be.
Perhaps You Still Have Questions About Parent Coaching...
Will parent coaching provide me with concrete tools to use with my kids?
Yes, parent coaching at BCC is unique in that we provide our clients with concrete tools and resources to use for themselves and with their children. Coaching offers parents strategies for regulating their own emotions and managing their fight/flight/freeze response, which parenting can activate.
We also offer skills for setting healthy boundaries, building accountability, and helping kids make better choices. Each child and their family is unique, so we’ll customize a toolbox according to your needs.
Does your parent coaching focus on secure attachment?
Absolutely! Our parent counseling services are based on a foundation of helping you develop and sustain secure attachment with your child. Secure attachment creates a relationship where children are more eager to be influenced and receive direction from their parents.
There is a great saying, "Connect before you direct," which says that if we have a connection with our children before asking for a change, they are more likely to listen and want to comply with our request.
Can my partner attend some coaching sessions so we can learn about parenting together?
While most of our therapy and coaching sessions are individual-based for insurance billing purposes, we encourage you to periodically bring in your partner so we can collaborate on co-parenting skills. We also encourage you to share what you learn with your partner and come up with a plan together on how to incorporate ideas into your co-parenting. Plus, if past issues come to the surface in sessions, working with a parent coach gives you both a safe space to process and learn from those things.
Parenting Can Be A More Joyful And Rewarding Experience
If you feel like you’re starting to buckle under the stress of parenting, our caring therapists at Bozeman Counseling Center want to help make your and your child’s life easier. Please Contact Us or call (406) 624-6007 for your free, 15-minute consultation—or schedule your first online or in-person parent coaching session.
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