This is Part 2 in our Parent Coaching Series
What Does Parent Coaching Look Like?
In the first post of this series, we talk about what parent coaching is, why it’s helpful, and what we offer here at UP. Parent coaching builds upon caregiver skills by equipping them with the support and resources to improve outcomes for their child. It is a cost-effective way to maximize intervention hours for children, supporting their active engagement in daily routines, which further develops their social-communication and language skills (Wetherby et al., 2018). In this post, we will dive deeper into what parent coaching sessions look like. This will help you know what to expect in terms of your time commitment, participation, and the types of support you’ll receive. Parent coaching can be done virtually, in your home, or in the clinic environment.
The progression of each parent coaching program is unique, depending on your specific goals and needs. However, most programs will involve the following elements:
- Assessment & Goal Setting
In your first meeting, we’ll discuss your child’s strengths, specific goals you have for your family and child, and areas you are looking for support in. Some areas parents often want support with may include managing transitions, improving bedtime or meal time routines, or increasing skills in critical areas like language, communication, or social engagement. Many families express wanting a deeper connection with their child, to better understand their child, and to help support their child during necessary routines to ease the stressors they’re currently experiencing. Your coach will then suggest a roadmap for your sessions to help you achieve your goals.
- Roadmap Implementation
Next, the parent coach will guide you with focused session topics. Depending on your goals, this may include putting together a plan to support a particular situation, or introducing key interaction or teaching strategies. If more information is needed, the coach may ask additional questions and/or observe you interacting with your child in daily routines. Observation is an important part of coaching, as it allows the coach to see specific strengths and skills that you have learned to implement. As every child is different, observation also allows us to troubleshoot strategies that may not be working as intended.
- Coaching Techniques
As working with parents and families is a very different skill set than working with children directly, our parent coaches have specialized training in a variety of parent coaching techniques, and may use different tools or strategies depending on your needs and situation. Some techniques that we may use in coaching include:
- Reflection and problem solving: Coaches use specific strategies to guide you in reflecting on particular situations. This can include questions around what went well, what could be improved, and brainstorming or problem solving around tricky spots.
- Coaching/Support: A coach can help you work through a specific situation or implement a new technique using in the moment coaching to provide reminders, tips, or suggestions while you are interacting with your child.
- Modelling or role playing: A coach may work with you to model what you might say or do in a particular situation, show a video example of a strategy, or try the strategy with your child directly. This can include active practice by “acting it out” before you go ahead and try it with your child.
- Education: Coaches can provide insight and education into what difficulties your child is experiencing, how this impacts their development, and what you can do about it so that you can better understand your child and their needs.
These are just a few common techniques that a parent coach may use to support you in learning new skills to meet the goals you have for you and your child.
- Tracking Progress & On-Going Communication
We have a variety of strategies available to help you gather necessary information to monitor progress towards your goals. Tracking progress can also give us valuable information about what is/isn’t going well with our plan. Coaches will suggest individualized and easy to implement strategies for tracking progress. Success is measured not just by the child’s progress, but by how confident and empowered you feel in using the suggested strategies and integrating them into your daily routines, and your coach is always available for check-ins between sessions if a difficult situation arises or you have questions.
Structure of Parent Coaching Sessions
Once we have a plan in place, ongoing parent coaching sessions often follow a structure like this:
- Check in/discussion: Check in and see how things have been over the past week, what is going well, what you have questions or concerns about, and if there’s something specific you’d like to focus on today.
- Warm up activity: Show us what you have been working on with your child so we can celebrate your progress with you!
- Reflection and discussion: Review how the warm up activity went, and decide what to focus on for the remainder of the coaching sessions.
- Review topics & answer questions: Coach introduces/reviews topic(s) with you and answers any questions you may have.
- Active practice: You and your child will engage together, and your coach will support you to implement the strategies we are focusing on that day.
- Summarize & Set focus of the week: You’ll make a plan with the coach on what/how to practice until your next session.
Parent coaching can be done on a short (1 month) or long term (3 months) basis to help you make meaningful changes in supporting your child!
Where Can I Receive Parent Coaching?
UP Early Intervention Clinic offers parent coaching services with our Senior Behaviour Analysts, including our Parent Coach, Dr. Hayley Neimy, Ph.D., BCBA-D. Hayley has extensive experience in working with infants and toddlers and their caregivers in parent coaching. We have several options depending on what area of focus is most important to you. For instance, if you are having difficulty with managing challenging behaviours, the Balance program may be a good fit for you. Or, if you are more concerned with your child’s skill development, parent coaching for everyday routines may be what you are looking for. You can find more information on our available options here: https://www.upearlyintervention.com/parent-coaching.
If you’re not ready for individual coaching, try our Early Start Parent and Toddler group. Come and learn some simple strategies in a relaxed environment with other parents and children. https://www.upearlyintervention.com/services/parent-and-toddler-playgroup/
Conclusion
The stages of parenting coaching and the amount of support provided by the coach operate along a continuum. This allows for flexibility to move forward or backward in the process depending on the child’s emotional regulation and active engagement as well as the parents’ comfortability with implementing the suggested strategies. Coaches will meet parents where they are at and support them in meeting their goals!
Reference
Wetherby, A. M., Woods, J., Guthrie, W., Delehanty, A., Brown, J. A., Morgan, L., Holland, R. D.,
Schatschneider, C., & Lord, C. (2018). Changing developmental trajectories of toddlers with autism spectrum disorder: Strategies for bridging research to community practice. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 61(11), 2615–2628. https://doi.org/10.1044/2018_JSLHR-L-RSAUT-18-0028
