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Home › Articles › You and Your Children › Go Parents Go!

Go Parents Go!

Supportive Coaching for
Successful Parenting

By Kelly Burgess

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In spite of the six thousand manuals on child raising in the bookstores, child raising is still a dark continent and no one really knows anything. You just need a lot of love and luck and, of course, courage.
Bill Cosby

And, of course, a coach. OK, Bill Cosby didn't say that, but he probably would have if there had been parent coaches back when his kids were young. The fact is, parenting is a dark continent, and it's one that most parents are marooned on. There often isn't anyone you can turn to and ask, "Am I doing this right?"

While telling you what to do isn't the goal of parent coaching, the trained parent coach can offer a supportive ally and sounding board. This can be helpful not just when the going gets tough, but also in the little day in and day out challenges that can make a family lose perspective on the big picture.

Pros and Cons of Coaching
Parent coaches are not Super Nanny. They don't come into your home, make a chart of where everyone is supposed to be and when, reward the fixed family with a trip to Aruba and then drive off to the next job. Parent coaches are also not mental health professionals, and they are not equipped to solve potentially serious problems with children that should be treated by a mental health professional.

Having said that, parent coaching is not a bad idea. It's also an idea that was probably inevitable. After all, career coaches have been a popular trend in the corporate world for some time now. Gloria DeGaetano had that encouraging corporate model in mind when she started the Parent Coaching Institute in 2000. "Parenting is a process, and there are a million ways to do it right," she says. "This is about having a supportive companion on the parenting journey who can help you prioritize and be a sounding board for decision making."

DeGaetano feels this type of support is particularly important in our media-driven culture, as today's parents have so many outside forces attempting to undermine their values and authority. "Our culture has never been this complex before," she says. "Popular culture is out there eroding traditional values, and when parents try to take a stand against that they become the unpopular culture. It can be very discouraging if you don't have someone to back you up and help support you in this process."

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