What is a parent coach

What is a Parent Coach?

Parent coaching refers to guiding parents to learn to regulate their emotions, look at problems and situations in a dialectical way of thinking, and combine recognition and problem-solving techniques (setting boundaries and reinforcement) to achieve a balance of acceptance and change, helping children increase adaptive behaviors and reduce maladaptive behaviors.

What is dialectics?

Dialectics says that there is no single, absolute truth in the world, that seemingly contradictory things can be established at the same time, and that everything is changing. This is actually a kind of philosophical view that the Chinese people are very familiar with, often said "Sai Weng lost his horse", "no pole Tai Lai", "happy pole born sad", are the application of this philosophical view, so that we can better conform to nature in life, do not give up hope, and take the middle way.

Used in parent coaching, it is hoped to teach parents to recognize their own solidified way of thinking when they have conflicts with their children, see the differences between themselves and their children in the face of the same phenomenon and problem, and are willing to consider from each other's point of view, willing to see the rationality of the contradictory views and beliefs of both sides, willing to try to seek integration, perhaps a compromise solution.

For example, when a child who has just been hospitalized communicates with a doctor during the day, he says that the disease has caused a lot of damage to himself, and he wants to get better, is willing to work hard for it, and is willing to cooperate with the doctor's treatment. And that night when I communicated with my mother on the phone, I said that I wanted to be discharged, the more my mother explained the seriousness of the disease and needed to be hospitalized, the more angry the child became, excitedly claiming that he did not want to get better at all, would not cooperate with treatment, and did not let him die in the hospital! The mother is very scared, thinking that what the child told the doctor is a lie, and asks the doctor to quickly find a way to change the child's mind, otherwise the hospitalization will be useless. In this case, the mother's belief is that the child has only one idea of change and cooperation, either wanting to change and being willing to cooperate, or not wanting to change and not wanting to cooperate. And the mother thinks that the part of the child telling herself is true, and what the doctor says is false.

So, what is the truth? I want to say, I don't know. And I'll never know. What I know is that this belief of the mother will make her more and more anxious to control the child, and want to correct the child. This will quickly lead to a struggle with the child and destroy the basis of cooperation. You see, this "unconscionable" belief is harmful. However, this belief is very common, especially when emotions are intense. For example, when we are very happy, we feel that everything is beautiful and hopeful; when we are extremely sad, we feel that we have nothing and hopeless. In such an emotional mind, it is easy for people to lose their dialectics. Therefore, in the parent coach, we emphasize teaching parents the ability to regulate their emotions, to realize whether they are caught in the emotional heart, if they are trapped, first find a way to come out and find the wisdom heart (see "Is this my wisdom heart?"). ”）。 In fact, the emotional mind and the rational mind are a pair of seemingly contradictory things, but the wisdom mind integrates them, which is itself a dialectic.

Now, going back to this example, if the mother asks herself at this time, how to dialectically understand the two contradictory attitudes displayed by the child, can she come up with any new explanation? Maybe it is "the child has the motivation to want to get better, but also the force that hinders the motivation, these two forces are changing", so that slowly to clarify the source of motivation and resistance, to find the point that may promote change, become a natural goal, this is no longer a tense crisis state, but a state that can take time to explore.

What is accreditation?

Next, let's briefly talk about what recognition is. To make it clear, I would like to emphasize one point first - recognition is not praise, not consent! The word endorsement is a term derived from dialectical behavioral therapy (DBT), not what we usually mean. The recognition mentioned here refers to the parents' verbal and non-verbal transmission of information to the child, indicating that the child's thoughts, experiences, and some of the resulting behaviors are reasonable, can be, do have, and do not matter or are good. Do you find it strange or difficult to understand? That can be seen from what is not recognized. Corresponding to recognition, disapproval is to send a message that tells the child that his thoughts/experiences/behaviors should not be there, get it wrong (actually no/no), and be terrible or bad. Does this evoke some of your memories? Has anyone ever expressed such a message to you? What about your children?

To give a concrete example, there was once a parent in the parent group who shared his interaction with his child: the child is very kind, unwilling to refuse the request of others, and will give away his precious things against his heart. After an attempt to refuse, my mother asked "Isn't it cool?" As a result, the child said no, but felt embarrassed and somewhat guilty. Mom's response was probably: There's nothing to feel guilty about (there shouldn't be)! You don't have to take responsibility for how they feel (get me wrong)! This is your biggest problem and you have to think hard about my advice (very serious/bad)! An experienced parent reported that "it seems that you are giving your child some disapproval of the environment." What does "this parent is very confused" mean? "I fully understand the parent's reaction, he has never learned what recognition is, and he does not understand why his response to the child will be questioned by other parents and persuade them to "learn more". In his eyes, he is intimate with the child, is the child's emotional support, and the response he gives is 100% in support of the child's actions. Let's see what the problem is.

Dialectically, parents are not wrong. From the perspective of parents: children have the right to refuse, but also should refuse, suffered so many grievances, and finally did it should feel happy, which is very reasonable. And the child does not feel good, he must not want to understand, then he should quickly change, otherwise he will continue to be wronged! Change to the child's point of view: the reason why I can't refuse is that I am afraid of hurting feelings, I can't stand to see others hurt or dissatisfied with myself, when I do this, the feeling of guilt will naturally come out, it is really unhappy! Of course I know I have the right to refuse, but for me it's not easy to do, and I don't want you to tell me it's simple!

Simply put, both parents and children are right. The problem is that the first thing a child needs before changing is for their own hardships and/or efforts to be seen, recognized, and respected! Only in this way will he be willing to go close to the parents and listen to their ideas about change. Without recognition, it will make him feel that he is denied, which is particularly harmful to the child's unstable sense of self, will increase the child's self-doubt and self-denial, and may be more dependent on the parent on the surface, but may be more depressed.

That's why parent coaches teach recognition — without which it's hard for kids to come close to their parents to share topics about change. Not knowing that you are not recognizing, unwilling to approve, and not recognizing can become a common obstacle for parents (I will elaborate on the two obstacles of reluctance and non-approval in a later article). Parent coaches help you remove these obstacles.

Problem solving

Finally, let's talk about problem solving. Parents who seek parent coaches basically come to the counselor for this purpose. What if my child doesn't want to go to school? What should I do if my child is addicted to the Internet? What should I do if my kids go to nightclubs? What should children do with promiscuous netizens?。。。 How to do these things, all in the case of fruitless parents' efforts, come to the counselor to ask for "panacea". The consultant will first take the exam to see how the parents recognize the skills, and the recognition skills are not passed, without talking about problem solving. Of course, this does not prevent me from introducing problem solving here.

Problem solving refers to the use of boundaries and positive reinforcement skills to promote behavior change in children, gradually increasing adaptive behaviors, and reducing maladaptive behaviors, that is, behaviors that are not conducive to health and achieving life goals.

Setting boundaries refers to behaviors that parents explicitly specify that children cannot be allowed to occur, such as having to go home before 10 p.m. and playing for no more than 3 hours. The negative consequences of the violation are then clearly specified. Negative consequences need to meet 3 conditions, one is to ensure that it is enforceable, for example, say that the late home will pay a fine, but the child is distressed that the money is not willing to pay, the implementation is difficult, it is better to change to go home late to deduct the pocket money next week, the right to action is in the hands of the parents, and the enforceability is guaranteed. The second is that every violation will be implemented, if the violation of the regulations of the mother encounters the consequences of not being implemented, the father will be executed when it is encountered, the effect will of course be bad, only let the child pick the mother at home when the violation, rather than actively restrain their own behavior. For example, if you go home at a time more than 10 p.m., you can no longer go out at night to play, which may bring about emotional outbursts and conflicts, rather than the role of behavioral restraint.

You should note that setting boundaries is associated with negative consequences, and must be aimed at behaviors that parents are adamantly unacceptable. So, before setting boundaries, the first thing you have to do is observe your own boundaries and determine what you can accept and what you can't. Usually, parents who come to parent coach, their boundaries have been constantly challenged and reshaped by their children, and it is not easy to change them all at once, so it is necessary to carefully observe and select no more than three behaviors to intervene by setting boundaries. (How to observe the boundaries, I will detail elsewhere)

Positive reinforcement refers to the timely reward of the adaptive behavior of the child that the parent wants to increase, so as to promote the child's more use of such behavior. And when the child is doing problem behavior (but not the behavior specified in the boundaries), the parent just does not reinforce it. From this explanation, you need to know that the key point is to understand whether we are reinforcing the behavior we want! Although parents are familiar with rewards, I have found that parents often inadvertently reward them for behaviors they do not want, such as parents keep nagging when children talk well, and parents shut up as soon as children drop things, so that children's behavior of dropping things is "rewarded" by the parents' response to stop nagging.

Above, setting boundaries and positive reinforcement are all easier said than done, and the skills that are full of pits are easy to operate. Especially for parents who have already had a lot of painful experience, it is even more difficult. Therefore, parent coaches are taking the time to help you clarify your thinking, under the wisdom of the heart, with a dialectical way of thinking, see the parts of the child that can be recognized, give full recognition, create opportunities for cooperative problem solving, and then effectively use these problem solving skills to slowly shape the child's behavior and change the status quo.

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