What is Parent Coaching?

Parent coaching is support that is offered to parents with a focus on helping parents build skills, confidence, and resiliency in parenting.  Parent coaching takes a dual focus: 1) Helping parents identify and meet the needs of their children and 2) Supporting parents to recognize and meet their needs as parents and to grow through their experiences in parenting.  Sometimes this includes identifying and processing the unique challenges and gifts of parenting high needs kids and integrating those experiences into the parent’s concept of self.  It can also include identifying and working with how past traumas show up and impact one's parenting.  

Parent coaching is highly customized to the family seeking support and may include: 

• Education around child development, mental health needs, or neurodivergence 

• Skills training (DBT skills, therapeutic parenting skills, collaborative problem solving, acceptance skills)

• Trauma support (current and past traumas impacting how one shows up as a parent)

• Support for acute crisis management (phone coaching for parents whose children may be in crisis)

Parent coaching can involve one parent alone or two or more parents.  

Who might benefit from Parent Coaching?

At Baltimore Annapolis Center for Integrative healing, Emily offers parent coaching to parents of children ages 3+.  Emily also works with parents of adult children who are struggling with on-going parenting concerns.

Parent coaching can address issues around:

• Navigating hard-to-understand behaviors of children

• Processing a recent mental health or neurodivergence diagnosis

• Responding to acute needs in children including mental health crises, suicidality, or self-injury behaviors

• Creating a life that works for all family members given the needs of the children and parents

• Helping parents work from a common framework to meet the needs of kids

• Concerns about how past trauma or abuse impacts how one shows up as a parent for one's kids

• Processing difficult feelings about parenting struggles in a supportive environment

Why seek Parent Coaching from a Neurodivergence Specialist?

Traditionally parent coaching has focused on behavioral approaches.  While these approaches may work for some kids, often parents seek parent coaching because the traditional approaches have failed (or made things worse.*)  If you suspect that your child may be neurodivergent (including ADHD, Autism, high intelligence, high sensitivity), understanding how neurodivergence manifests and may lead to hard-to-understand behaviors is critical!  Without correctly identifying the cause of challenges and the underlying (nervous system) needs of children, we are likely to only mask (cover up) problems, rather than create lasting solutions.  

* Note: for some neurodivergent kids, behavioral strategies are experienced as traumatic.

Parents of neurodivergent kids often feel alone,  misunderstood, and judged for their kids' differences or their struggles in parenting effectively.  They may feel like failures as parents and carry guilt or shame.  They may struggle to balance their own neurodivergence or nervous system needs with those of their kids.  I have seen tremendous relief come to parents of neurodivergent children at finally having their kid and their family understood.  When we as therapists and parents have the right "lenses" on to view children, our empathy increases, we have new language to talk about our challenges and joys, our ability to accept what is increases, and problem-solving becomes possible.

Why seek Parent Coaching from a Trauma Specialist?

Trauma and neurodivergence can look similar in kids and for kids who have experienced both, it can be difficult to tease out what is what in order to take effective steps to support kids.  Living as a neurodivergent (Autistic, ADHD, AuDHD, highly sensitive/HSP) person in a world that is not set up to support you, is also fundamentally traumatic.  

Parenting a high needs kid can also be traumatic.  Trauma specialists are trained to recognize and work with the impacts of trauma on clients' lives and self-image.  Some parents of high needs kids have symptoms consistent with PTSD or struggle with grief around the discrepancy between their expectations and experience of parenting.

For other parents, their anxiety, anger, sadness, or other feelings that come up when parenting may relate to past trauma or family of origin issues.  Trauma specialists are trained to help clients recognize and work with these reactions.  Trauma modalities such as EMDR, Brainspotting, somatic work, or parts work (IFS) may be recommended to augment more practical aspects of parenting work.

Emily's work as a parent coach is informed by the following therapeutic approaches:

• Collaborative and Proactive Solutions Model (a neurodivergence-affirming framework developed by Ross Greene)

• Low Demand Parenting (for parenting children who fit a PDA profile)

• Trauma-informed approaches including attachment theory and attachment-focused EMDR

• Dialectical Behavior Therapy (for parenting of children with mental health diagnoses, risky behaviors, or suicidality or for parents who experience intense emotions)

How long does Parent Coaching take?

Parent coaching can be short-term or long-term.  Often a parent coaching client starts weekly for 1-2 months then shifts to biweekly.  Many parent coaching clients complete parent coaching in 4-6 months.  Others choose to transition to individual trauma work relating to parenting concerns or to see a parent coach monthly for maintenance.  If your child is in a DBT program, it is recommended that parents see a DBT parent coach concurrently to ensure that parents can model DBT skill use and that changes in the home support the child's stabilization.

What about Collaboration with my Child's Care Team?

For minor children who are under behavioral or psychiatric care, a parent coach will request a release of information to allow collaboration with those providers.  Information exchanged is typically focused on details about what skills parents and children have learned and what are the current and on-going needs of the children.  Collaboration helps relieve some pressure from the child's primary therapist to support the needs of parents allowing the child's therapy to remain more confidential and focused on the child's needs.

Other Considerations

• Parents who are in active addiction are encouraged to seek specialized addiction services prior to starting parent coaching services.  An addictions specialist is often the best-fit for supporting parents and families where there are patterns of drug or alcohol abuse.

• Parents in high-conflict relationships are encouraged to work on reducing inter-parent conflict via mediation of couple's counseling.  Sometimes this can be concurrent with parent coaching, but parent coaching will focus on the needs of the child, not parent-to-parent communication patterns or boundaries.

• Family members should be living in an environment free of abuse prior to starting parenting coaching.

• If you suspect Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders, please share this with your prospective parent coach up front, as best practices vary for these needs.  

How do I get started?
Prospective clients can reach out to Emily by email request a free 20 minute consultation (emily@bahealing.com).  The consultation will allow Emily to determine if she's a good fit for the family's needs and determine the recommended initial frequency of sessions.