Questions to Ask a Parent Coach in Houston

No matter how hard you try, sometimes things just don’t go smoothly for your family. You’re not sure exactly why and it’s hard to figure out what to do. You don’t think anybody needs therapy, and you’ve heard about something called parent coaching. Maybe you’ve even asked around about finding one (we talked about how to find a parent coach in a previous blog), but you’re not sure what step to take next.

In a city the size of Houston, it can be hard to narrow down a list of professionals to find some solid choices for your family. We’ve put together some ideas for questions that you can ask a parent coach in Houston to see if they’re someone you want to work with and to find out if parent coaching might help things get better at home.

Here are some questions to ask a parent coach:

1. What does a parent coach do?

   A professional who says they do parent coaching should be able to clearly articulate the process they’ll follow with you. Parent coaching is NOT therapy: it’s a way of supporting you as a parent in identifying what you’d like to change and how you want things to go. A parent coach should give you strategies to meet your goals and help you assess how they’re working as you start putting them in place at home. They’re not there to tell you what’s wrong--they want to help you figure out what to do so that things go right.

2. What training do you have?

   Coaches, unlike therapists, typically do not have to comply with formal training or licensing requirements, so you’ll want to know what qualifications your coach does have. A good parent coach will have a focus on parenting and family issues, and very importantly, a wealth of knowledge about children’s development. Maybe you’d like someone with a lot of experience with the issues your family is going through. The right parent coach for your family will have pursued training and education in the areas that are important to you.

3. How does this work?

   Typically, the parent coaching process starts with your giving the professional information about your family--what works, what doesn’t, details about your children’s development and personalities, and how you’d like things to change. A good parent coach will meet you where you are, build on what’s successful, and offer ideas about how you can get to your goals. The process usually involves some training, practice at home, and then meeting up with your coach to share how things went. If you need some more information or a shift in strategies, that will happen at your follow-up meetings. You go home and practice, come back and report, and the process repeats that way.

4. How do you give feedback? How do I know if what I’m doing is working?

   Just like any good coach, a parent coach will give you ways to track your progress and help you correct your course if you’re not on track to reach your goals. Do you prefer a drill sergeant or a kind mentor? Do you learn best by watching or doing? What information do you need to chart to know if things are changing for the better? Knowing the answers to these questions can help you determine what parent coaching techniques will be helpful to YOU, and will guide you in what to ask prospective parent coaches.

5. How long will this take?

   Every family is different, but a motivated parent can take parent coaching advice and make real progress in a few weeks. Generally, you can expect parent coaching to be a cost-effective and time-limited way to effect the change you’d like to see at home.

6. What’s the difference between parent coaching and therapy?

   Parent coaching does not address significant developmental or emotional issues like therapy does. Certainly, those concerns can cause behaviors that can be positively addressed by coaching, but parent coaching will not give you the tools to solve all the problems that child or family therapy can. In parent coaching, the focus will be on the here and now and on the concrete goals you’d like to achieve as a parent. There’s not a psychological diagnosis or any significant delving into your child’s or family’s background or history. 

7. Do you tell me what I should do with my kids?

   A good parent coach can give you some guidance if it’s helpful, but it’s important that the goals you set match your family’s values and what works for you. It’s different for every family. Your family has strengths that nobody else’s does, and the right parent coach will help you find and use them to get to where you want to go.

If you still wonder what you should ask a potential parent coach, we’re here to help. We can set you up with a free, no-obligation, phone consultation where you can find out more about how parent coaching might be the right fit for your family. Give us a call at (713) 936-0633. We’d love to talk with you!