Research Paper By Inas Ghanem
(Life coach, EGYPT)
Abstract
This research paper aims at building parents‘ awareness regarding the capacity and resourcefulness of their kids that nictitates mothers and fathers to coach them and avoid the instruction attitude as a lifelong trend.
By the end of the paper, one will be able to acknowledge that parents need to coach their kids throughout their lives, it is not an option. A guide for this coaching approach will be presented.
Introduction
Life affords no greater responsibility, no greater privilege, than the raising of the next generation. Everett Koop
Parenting
Parenting is undoubtedly the most rewarding and challenging adventure in a one‘s life. It‘s not only children who grow. Parents do too. As much as we watch to see what our children do with their lives, they are watching us to see what we do with ours. Parenting is one of the most fulfilling feelings in many people‘s life and they compromise many of their career opportunities to give their kids what they perceive as happiness, joy and love. Somehow, parenting our children is the most responsible thing most of us ever do, yet we are doomed to experiment every day of our kids‘ life, through trial and error, in search of the best parenting formula. Parenting has been going on since the beginning of humanity, but many parents still feel they must reinvent the wheel over and over again and count on some mysterious instincts they are supposed to have. [1] Parenting is the process of promoting and supporting the physical, emotional, social, financial, and intellectual development of a child from infancy to adulthood. Parenting refers to the aspects of raising a child. Parenting is a long-term investment. From talking and reading to infants to making values clear, parents exert enormous influence over their children’s development. They are, however, not the only influences, especially after children enter school. It’s especially important that parents give children a good start, but it’s also important for parents to recognize that kids come into the world with their own temperaments, and it is the parents’ job to provide an interface with the world that eventually prepares a child for complete independence. In a rapidly changing world parenting seems subject to fads and changing styles, but the needs of child development as delineated by science remain relatively stable. [2]
Mentoring
In his old age Mentor was a friend of Odysseus who placed Mentor and Odysseus’ foster-brother Eumaeus in charge of his son Telemachus, and of Odysseus’ palace, when Odysseus left for the Trojan War. [ICA modules ]
A mentor is someone who teaches or gives help and advice to a less experienced and often younger person. The mentor is usually older and more experienced than the person being mentored. The mentor bestows their knowledge and wisdom onto the student. The student looks up to the mentor and seeks guidance and advice from the mentor. [ICA modules]
Coaching
The International Coach Federation defines coaching as; ―Professional coaches provide an on-going partnership designed to help clients produce fulfilling results in their personal and professional lives. Coaches help people improve their performances and enhance the quality of their lives.
Coaches are trained to listen, to observe and to customize their approach to individual client needs. They seek to elicit solutions and strategies from the client; they believe the client is naturally creative and resourceful. The coach‘s job is to provide support to enhance the skills, resources, and creativity that the client already has.
Coaching involves dialogue between a coach and a client with the aim of helping the client obtain a fulfilling life. This is achieved by helping the client establish what is important to them and by clarifying their values. With the client‘s input the coach co-creates value based goals and a plan to achieve them. Through collaboration, the coach supports the client to achieve these goals. [ICA modules]
Analysis
Parents as Role Models
I can‟t tell my children to reach for the sun. All I can do is reach for it myself. Joyce Maynard
Parents serve as role models not only through direct interactions with their children, but through the examples they set with their attitude and behaviour within the family and in the outside world. By addressing their concerns, sharing their lives, and maintaining a constructive perspective, parents can contribute to their children’s personal growth and development.
My father didn‟t tell me how to live; he lived, and let me watch him do it. Clarence Budinton Kelland
Parents as Mentors
In families, children rely upon their parents for the development of their character, values, sense of purpose and right and wrong — hence the expression, “As right as Mom and apple pie.” Kids, being mentored by their parents, would identify their purpose in life, for example, “To be the best I can be, to help others and leave the world a better place.” Or ―Acceptance to top colleges became the goal, with academic achievement.
Behind every productive life, there is mentorship. Parents have been given that gift. They need to use it wisely.
You are your child’s first, and most important, teacher. You have the power to bring out all of the hidden talents that are waiting to emerge within your child. You will develop your child’s full potential simply by learning to identify, affirm, and develop his or her natural talents and abilities.
Parents need to simply have confidence in their children as unique individuals. [5]
Parents as Coaches
For living healthy life, one needs to be coached on certain aspects of living especially at specific stages of development. What about our children, do they need to be coached? What should they be coached in and by whom?
Living with children can be one of life’s most enjoyable experiences; it can also be unbelievably frustrating at times. No matter how skilled we are as parents or how committed to meeting the challenges of that role, we have disappointments, you are discouraged, we experience self-doubt. Parenting is a dynamic process where parent and child simultaneously teach and learn from each other. The same as coaching with is a life- long learning journey. In my opinion, to be a parent is to be appointed Life Coach for your children – not on selected occasions or during certain times, but always and forever (or at least during most of the time that you spend with your children).
Parents need to know ways to; encourage good behaviour, handle difficult ones, stay the course despite the challenges, power struggles, and attempted manipulations that inevitably come along. [6,7]
Accepting the role of coaches to our kids, and aiming at success in that role, we need to follow the core competences of the coaches in this respect but with customization to suit the coming generation thoughts, skills and ideas coupled with their emotions, feelings, intuition and intelligence.
Parent Values & Life Purpose
Conscious parenting means that you have a clear vision of what kind of family you want to have and who you would like your children to become. In this process, you are attentive to what each child needs to thrive, instill principles and take the time to have conversations with your children that nurture the parent-child relationship. The relationship we create with our children along with their temperament helps shape the kind of person they become. [8,9, & 10]
Guidelines to Coaching Your Kids
Coaching your kids is a lifetime job. It starts at the very early stages. The parents‘ role develops as the children grow. It begins to be purely a parent then develops to be a role model. The parent has to keep in mind that being a Role Model doesn‘t end at any stage of their children‘s lives, it continues for ever, even after they leave this world. The parent and role model then develops to be a mentor.
Approaching the teen age, parents need to tune their attitude and performance and turn into coaches.
Coaching our children relies on three main pillars, developed from the International Coach Academy, ICA, basic modules, namely;
Foundation
1- True Beliefs
As a foundation to coaching your kids, the parent has to believe that his kid has limitless potential & can achieve great things. The child is the source of the knowledge required to answer the challenges of their own lives.
2- Appreciative Inquiry
Many parents come from a place of fear and control, and demand obedience from their children. In turn, the child rebels against this authoritarian approach.
Appreciative Inquiry (AI) has been researched and used successfully in corporations, community organizations, some school setting, life coaching and counselling. It has a wonderful track record because the AI process supports positive, long term change, offering much hope and unleashing new levels of creativity, innovation, and inspiration.
Appreciative Inquiry offers an alternative to this approach and can make the parenting job more rewarding. It offers a model that allows families to take time aside from their busy schedule and bring BEING into their busy family lives and into the relationship with their children. The process uses a four-stage process for the families to co-create exciting and sustainable solutions.
Appreciative Inquiry 4D cycle
Coaching your child through Appreciative Inquiry, can be done through the following inquiries;
Discovery
Dream
Design
Destiny
Life Design
1- Values & Life Purpose
Values
The way children learn values, simply put, is by observing what parents do, and drawing conclusions about what parents think is important in life. Regardless of what you consciously teach them, your children will emerge from childhood with clear views on what their parents really value, and with well developed value system of their own.
Parents are not the only source from which children learn values, and peers certainly influence kids, especially as teenagers. Research shows that the stronger your relationship with your child, the more her world — including the opinions of her peers — is filtered through the values she’s picked up from you. Not to mention that if she has good self-esteem and a warm home life, she is more likely to pick friends who are more in sync with those values.
It’s healthy for young people to think for themselves and develop their own world view, as much as we may want to influence our children. Here comes the role of coaching.
- Is your 6 year old allowed to break a date with a friend to accept another, much more exciting, invitation?
- How much help should your 8 year old accept from you on her school project?
- Should your 10 year old leave the neighborhood soccer team half-way through the season when he’s recruited to join a more professional team — even though he’s the best player and his exit will definitely leave his team hurting?
- Should your 12 year old invite a girl to her birthday party who some of the other girls look down on, but whose party she went to?
- Should your 14 year old tell the teacher that some of the kids are cheating on the tests?
- Should your 16 year old do volunteer work she doesn’t particularly care about because it will look good on her college application?
Life Purpose
Helping children become aware of their dreams and how to reach for goals is a critical skill parents need to coach their kids for. Our hopes and dreams shape our lives, the choices we make, and the success we achieve. Everyone has different dreams – and a different definition of success. But everyone needs a dream. Dreams and goals give life purpose, direction, and meaning. They help young people build toward the future, and offer a sense of control and hope.
Research shows it’s critical to get kids thinking early about what’s important to them and why. Setting and striving for goals helps children learn responsibility, how to break a large task into manageable steps, how to work with others to get what you want, how to handle stress, what’s realistic and what may not be, and to believe in who you are and what you can accomplish.
2- Self Awareness
Self-awareness is a skill that helps your child tune in to his feelings, thoughts and actions. It‘s more than just being able to recognize these things. It means understanding that how he acts on his thoughts and feelings affects himself and others.
There are two kinds of self-awareness. Private self-awareness is when your child is aware of something about himself that other people might not be. For example, say your child has to read in front of the class. Recognizing the feeling of butterflies in his stomach as a signal that he‘s nervous is private self-awareness. Public self-awareness is when your child is aware of how other people are seeing him. This can be hard for kids who have trouble reading social cues. For example, say your child stands very close to other kids while talking. Noticing that he is making others uncomfortable and taking a step back is an example of public self-awareness.
When coaching your child for good self-awareness skills, he:
3- Underlying Beliefs
Work with your child in the following areas;
4- Confidence
Self-esteem is your child‘s passport to a lifetime of mental health and social happiness. It‘s the foundation of a child‘s well-being and the key to success as an adult. At all ages, how you feel about yourself affects how you act.
With the right coaching and plenty of encouragement, kids can develop confidence, determination, resilience and strong emotional intelligence. Once kids have that intelligence, it becomes part of who they are, accompanies them for the rest of their life, can be easily used as a shield against pain and a guide towards happiness and success.
Every child is good at something. Help him discover it, encourage it, frame it and display it. If your home is missing this wall, your child is missing his moment of fame. If you have a child who is not athletic, ask him about scouting. As children walk by their showcase, they can see at a glance five to ten years of achievement. This gives them a lift, especially during times when their self-worth is faltering.
Work with your child on the following areas;
5- Self Management
What we’re really measuring with the marshmallows isn’t will power…It’s much more important than that. This task forces kids to find a way to make the situation work for them. They want the second marshmallow, but how can they get it? Walter Mischel
Many things excite and upset youngsters. It is important for the parent to help the child to know how to respond to emotional outbursts; anger, fear, frustration & sadness. This is in addition to managing himself to reach his tiny objectives, through;
Through coaching, your child will learn that we can‘t control the world, but we can control how we respond to it. Once you realize that will power is just a matter of learning how to control your attention and thoughts, you can really begin to increase it.
6- Releasing Judgement
Love is saying, I feel differently instead of you’re wrong.’ ~Unknown
Let‘s think about judgement in the sense of judging or being a judge. If you think of a judge in the legal sense, their role is to look at a situation and to judge, according to law, what the ramification should be of a certain action. In a legal system, judges refer to the law. If we take this concept and relate it to our life, we are the judges of our life. We have a rule book, a book of beliefs, a set of laws if you like, that we live by. Unlike societal laws, these are the laws or rules that we have decided to live our life by. These rules were created a very long time ago, often by our parents or the adults in our life as we were growing up. As children these rules are reinforced to us over and over again.
When you make your child wrong, you hold the energy of needing to correct, convince, control or change. Someone should ―be or do‖ the way you expect. Blaming, complaining, or condemning becomes acceptable.
When you make yourself wrong, you hold thoughts of how you should be, and end up feeling not good enough. We now see ourselves and others as objects or problems that need to be fixed.
Caroline Hidalgo, in her book ―The Foundation of Love: Releasing Judgments and Expectations― says that, during her childhood, there was criticism, and judgment growing up that she couldn’t see—right and wrong and good and bad. It was not just in her family, it was everywhere. Expectations of how children were to behave, what were they supposed to know, who were expected to be, and the kind of person was the prison in life.
Coach your child that;
7- Self Development
Now comes the time for developing a plan, by your child to develop himself. The Self Development Plan comes in two folds;
Coach your child to set a plan of action, with realistic goals and time span. Help him assign milestones of achievement and celebration activities. Aid him journal his breakthrough and acknowledge his deeds and the deeds of others as well.
Setting learning goals to fulfil the Self Development Plan, works well with Gallwey‘s QUEST formula of Learning to the children;
Qualities
What qualities your child wants to have based on the Life Design assessment
Understanding
It is more than the getting the information it is the comprehension of the development elements and their relation with each other.
Expertise
Which is monitoring the skills that need development and rating on a scale the target and the current level.
Strategic Thinking
Strategic thinking, as explained by Gallwey, is to step back from the tree to see the forest. Our children need to ensure that their actions in the self development plan are in line with their life purpose, overall goal and values.
Time
Your child has to ensure that he meets the set time frame.
Empowerment
Now, and after coaching your child for designing a life that best fits him as per his own values and beliefs, comes the role of empowerment for achievement. This empowerment is developed based on
The Power Tools developed by the International Coach Academy, ICA. Empowerment is done through;
1. Reframing Perspectives
See the Silver Lining
Optimistic people are able to find positive aspects in negative situations, no matter how small. This encourages people to feel like they have some control over situations and is the beginning of experiencing hope. Coach your kids see some of life‘s minor hardships as learning experiences;
✔Learning something to prevent it happening next time
You may have been unsuccessful this time but you know what to do next time.
✔ Positive spin-off;
It may have been a boring party but you did meet a new friend, which is great.
✔ Learning about yourself:
Maybe football, rather than cricket, is more your bag.
✔ It‘s just this! Avoidance of something more unpleasant:
You may have wrecked your skateboard but at least you didn’t get hurt and end up in hospital.
Accept what Happened
Help kids know when worrying is futile. It takes quite a skill to know when to worry and when to let things pass.
Coach kids accept situations that won‘t change. It is natural to want to bring back pets that have passed away or a friend who has moved away. There comes a time when kids need to stop trying to change things and just accept the reality of the situation.
2. Commitment
To coach your child to commitment, we need to model commitment at first.
Let‘s start by considering possible situations your child could come across:
In such situations, coach your child to;
3. Responsibility
Coach your child not to take things personally. Self-blame is one of the enemies of resilience. When you blame yourself for bad situations you think irrationally and experience loss of hope. Coach your children to apportion blame fairly when difficult situations occur rather than catastrophise and personalize the situation. Encourage your child to take responsibility of the coming actions.
4. Trust
Trust means you trust yourself to survive situations, and practice kindness, not perfection. It means you refuse to give up on yourself,
Coaching your child towards self trust includes;
5. Response
All kids – like all humans – get angry. When we feel threatened, we move into fight, flight or freeze. Anger is the body’s “fight” response.
Coach your kid to manage his response through;
6. Lightness
Laugh About it
Humour is a great coping strategy. Coach your kids to stand back and find a funny side to the situation they may be in. Don‘t trivialize situations, rather develop the ability to find some humour and hope in adversity. Humour is a powerful tool for resilience as it heightens feelings of control. It helps kids re-frame a situation and gain some perspective. Coach your child see a lighter or funny side of a situation.
Keep a Sense of Proportion
Be mindful of your child‘s propensity to jump to the worst from time to time. Coach him to mindfulness and reassurance through challenging him to think;
- What‘s the most likely scenario?
- Does it really matter?―You may be right, but is it the end of the world as we know it? Take kids to the worst possible scenario and they may see it‘s not so bad.
- Where does this fit on the disaster meter? Help them get some perspective by giving their worry a score out of ten, on how important the issue really is.
- That‘s unhelpful thinking. Sometimes kids‘ thinking is so out of whack with reality that they become anxious about minor things. Thinking such as, ‗everyone must like me‘, ‗I must never make a mistake‘ and ‗bad things always happen to me‘ are extreme and need to be replaced by more moderate, realistic thoughts. E.g. ―It would be nice if everyone liked me but not everyone will. It‘s important to have some good friends.
This is normal
Coach your child understand that he or she is not the only person to experience this. It‘s human nature to think that we are the only ones to experience bad things. But the human condition dictates that this is rarely the case. Everyone has experienced loss, rejection, disappointment and conflict in their lives. Coaching your kid to normalising a situation is an aspect of optimism. When they realise that others also experience similar difficulties and survive you they feel more hopeful.
7. Action
Help kids maintain hope by planning and moving forward
Situations always feel better when you can get some action happening. Coach your child see that there are solutions to many situations but first they do need to do something. A poor speller can improve but first he‘s got to get a list of words out and start practicing. Help kids set realistic goals and put plans in place to improve their situation. The plans need to be realistic – e.g. learn one new spelling word a day rather than ten.
Don’t let it spoil everything
Coach your child to park his or her bad thoughts somewhere. The ability to compartmentalize bad events and keep them from affecting all areas of life is a powerful coping skill. Resilient sports people such as golfer Greg Norman and former cricketer Shane Warne have the ability to segment their lives and prevent disappointment (in the case of Norman) or personal issues (in Warne‘s case) from impacting on their sporting performance.
Similarly, kids can be encouraged to park their challenging situations for a time so that they can function normally and then revisit them when it suits. For instance, if something negative happens at recess at school they need to make sure that it doesn‘t spoil their whole day. Coach them to know how to think about something else when they are in class and revisit their issue later on.
8. Respect
A healthy dose of self-respect is important for success. Self-respect acts as a foundation, determining personality, self-worth and ultimately how a person interacts with others. With strong self-respect, your child will know that he‘s important, smart and valuable. Approach this important life skill as an on going lesson. Strong senses of self-respect and self-esteem will help your child act responsibly, responsively and respectfully as he interacts with others daily.
Coach your child to;
9. Open-mindedness
Challenge black and white thinking and look for shades of grey
Before coaching your children on open-mindedness , watch your language to see if it‘s full of absolute, imperative terms such as: ―I must…, ―they should…, ―they never… If this is the case then you may be stuck with some very inflexible, unrealistic thinking that is causing you undue stress.
Today‘s kids talk in extremes – ‗awesome‘, ‗the best‘ and ‗gross‘ roll off their tongues easily these days. Extreme language leads to extreme thinking.
Coach your child to be mindful about his language and know that their language can exaggerate a situation out of all proportion. Help them moderate their language. For instance, they can replace ―I‘m furious with ―I‘m annoyed, ―It‘s a disaster with ‗It‘s a pain, ―I can‘t stand it with ―I don‘t like it. Sounds minor but by changing kids‘ language you change how they think about events and, more importantly, how they feel.
10. Setting a Support System
Coach your kid to outline who will help him and when. He needs to identify the tough situations that that he generally encounters and the people around him who can help. Through your coaching, he needs to identify the traits of the supporting people and the helping activities.
Coach your child;
- Talk about what‘s bothering them as social connection is such a strong preventative strategy for young people.
- Set help-seeking attitude; spend time around others who are empathetic, understanding and willing to listen and help.
- Identify who they can talk things through with – including friends, teachers and family members.
- How they can go about asking for assistance. Sometimes kids want to talk to others but don‘t know how to approach people so they bottle things up instead.
- Identify the best way to open up dialogue with different groups of people.
- Get effective feedback from his Support System, Feedback that can open up whole new opportunities.
Summary
Conclusions
The research paper sets a general guideline for parents to coach their kids to a better life. The Guideline works in three dimensions based on The International Coach Academy Modules, namely; Foundation, Life Design & Empowerment. The Guidelines are presented with recommended tools for success.
Author‟s Closure
Our relation with our kids starts by pure parenting in the infantry stages. The parents then play the role of the model and the relation becomes parenting and mentoring. In the pre-teens, teens and start of adulthood, the parent need to be his child‘s coach for the welfare of the child the parent and the whole family. When a healthy relation is established between the parent and his children during their early lives of development, when they are grownups and independent, they will refer to their parents for coaching on specific topics.
The question is, will the time come that we coach our parents?
Acknowledgement
I acknowledge The International Coach Academy, ICA, for their concrete and panoramic modules facilitated at their programs that I benefited much from during my study and were the base of this research paper.
References
Conscious Parenting through Appreciative Inquiry. The Personal Wellness Center. 19/6/2015.
15 Ways to Raise a Child with Great Values. Aha! Parenting. 19/6/2015.
Helping Kids Find Direction: Discuss, Discover, Do. Legacy Project. 18/6/2015.
Briers, Stephen. How your Child Thinks. 13/2/2009.
Ways to Raise a Confident Child. Ask Dr.Sears. 17/6/2015.
J. Ruffin, Novella. Developing Responsibility And Self Management in Young Children: Goals of Positive Behavior Management. 17/6/2015
8 Steps to Help your Child Develop Self Control. Aha! Parenting. 19/6/2015.
The Foundation of Love: Releasing Judgments and Expectations By Carolyn Hidalgo
Gallwey, Timothy. The Inner Game of Work. New York. 2000
Grose, Miichael. ―Coping. Parenting Ideas. 16/6/2015.