Finding a Parent Coach during COVID-19
Co-Authors: Colin Cass, Joanna Lilley and Robert Trout
For families, household dynamics just shifted drastically overnight. It went from having college students away at college and teenagers in high school, to now helping with homeschooling and online college courses. At both levels, we are already finding new learning challenges for students. Not to mention, parents themselves are being asked to work from home and/or recently lost their jobs. To say this is a stressful time is an understatement!
Concerns now, weren’t concerns a week ago. Now parents are asking themselves: “Is my child safe in their current program or should I bring them home?”,” What am I supposed to do with my child suddenly back home?”, or “What can I do to best prepare myself for these current events?” These are all fair questions and all questions that can be difficult to work through alone. With the support of parent coaching you can address your current concerns and come up with strategies to make a decision that works best for you.
Parent Coaches are used to looking at high stress situations with parents from different cultural and socioeconomic backgrounds. Our work is to allow parents to “see the options” that so often are hidden from them because of the stress and lack of experience with these types of scenarios. Coaches have seen almost everything in our work (even medical scenarios) that cause parents to be forced to be home with their kids. Our advice is “Don’t guess.” Have a plan based on strategies that are proven to work and set yourself up for success.
Knowing what parent coaching looked like before, and how parent coaching can be fluid for your needs will be valuable information for every parent to have during this stressful time.
How Parent Coaching looked prior to the COVID-19 crisis:
Support to hold a boundary and get your loved one into treatment.
Support while your student is in treatment.
Continued support after your loved one has left treatment.
How Parent Coaching is evolving during and post COVID-19 :
With teenagers and college students returning home, while parents are working from home it creates the perfect storm for chaos.
A stronger focus on what boundaries and structure needs to be in place if your child is suddenly coming home.
How to improve communication with your child during this stressful time.
How to get teens and young adults involved and empowered during crises.
How to unify around challenges that you are all feeling as a family.
Weighing all of the factors when making the best decision for your child around COVID-19.
The benefit of parent coaching and technology allows for parents to work with coaches from around the US. During this time of social distancing coaches can connect with the families remotely. Even parent coaching companies that are place-based are able to stretch a little beyond their typical boundary to help the growing number of parents in desperate need of this current service.
Not sure where to start? There are coaching resources that specifically focus on mental health, recovery coaching, or life coaching. Here are some coaching resources, specifically working with young adults, that you can inquire with (in alphabetical order):
For questions or comments contact:
Colin Cass via email.
Robert Trout via email.
