My Parenting Journey

So why parenting coaching? The children in the picture above are my children playing happily on the beach in the freezing cold. They are amazing and the absolute loves of my life but  I’ll be honest with you, nothing in my life has every challenged me as much as being a parent has. I went into it with confidence, after all I had cared for some really challenging children before I had my own. Surely looking after my own would be a breeze? Then I met my daughter.

I couldn’t understand it, I knew all the theory but somehow I just couldn’t seem to get it right. Like a lot of high-achieving, driven women I felt out of control for the first time in my life. I didn’t like it. This tiny little person held power over me like no one ever had before. No one had ever been able to push my buttons like she did. I adored her but I felt like I was failing.

It was only after a lot of self-reflection that I realised that I needed to start really listening and parenting the child I had, rather than the one I expected. How I wish there had been a parenting coach around to help me through this process! There was no where to turn when I needed help.

The Aims of Parenting Coaching

My work as a parenting coach combines my training as an NLP4parents practitioner with my experience working with hundreds of families while a practicing as a social worker and my experience caring for extremely complex children in my role as a manager of a therapeutic children’s home.

My parenting mantra is “behaviour is communication” and my work with parents involves helping them to decode that communication, because if you don’t understand the behaviour you have very little chance of changing it.

There are lots of challenges of parenting, achieving work life balance, managing sibling relationships, incompatible parenting styles, separations and new relationships. Parenting coaching gives parents the emotional space and tools to be able to negotiate challenges. This improves the connection with your child and allows you to get more joy from parenting.

Next Steps

Parenting Coaching sessions can be held in my therapy centre in Newcastle, within your home (dependent on distance from my Newcastle base), or by Zoom.