What is Parent Coaching?
As a coach, I work with you to help you recognize your own strengths and determine how you can leverage those strengths to design and implement your own solutions to your family's challenges. I'm a sounding board, and an active, sympathetic listener. Occasionally, I offer advice, but for the most part, I provide space, encouragement, and feedback to help you do your best thinking and planning.
Who benefits from my coaching?
Parents of Children With Serious Medical Illnesses
I am an ICU pediatrician turned parent coach. I cared for children and their families during some of their most difficult days, as the children underwent open heart surgery or bone marrow transplants, as they managed serious infections or traumatic injuries. I have a deep appreciation for the profoundly consuming and sometimes lonely challenge of parenting children with serious illnesses, alone or alongside their healthy siblings.
Parents of Children With Mental Health Challenges
Parenting a child with mental illness can leave parents exhausted, confused, and demoralized. The simple solutions that friends offer for managing a child's difficult behavior may have no effect or may even backfire dramatically. The first priority is to get your child the professional help that they need. Even when your child is receiving the best treatment possible, though, the impact of mental illness on the whole family unit can be enormous. A parent coach can help you adapt to the challenge of supporting your child in ways you never anticipated.
General Parenting Challenges
Parenting can be an overwhelming job. Sometimes, we struggle to keep the chaos more or less in check, making reactive decisions that we second-guess later. A parent coach can help you find your bearings. I can support you in identifying and implementing parenting choices that grow from your own values and priorities.