A Professional Counselor's Advice for Parents Seeking Counselors or Parent Coaching

Stress Is Not a Calming Interaction

We are a stress and child developmentally illiterate society. We don't understand our own adult stress. As adults, we are able to ignore and deny our bodily sensations and emotions. Because we are able to get through our day and accomplish our survival needs, we seem to think we don't get stressed. That is, until late at night we wonder why our shoulders are so tense and tight or we can't sleep and we need "something" to relax us.

A stressed-out parent cannot calm a stressed-out child.

The Parent Non-Blame Zone

Parents do the best they can with what they know. By the time parents seek counseling or coaching, they have usually spent years struggling with their child's acting out or "bad" behavior. They and the child or children are stressed out. Their confidence in their abilities to parent has declined and they are frustrated and in distress.

Any family counselor or parent coach should allow parents to:

    Enter a non-blaming zone. No matter how hard we try, sometimes our best effort just doesn't hit the mark. However, that doesn't mean we need verbal "spankings" or to be made to feel guilty by others or by ourselves. The past is the past and we are starting fresh from this point.
    Accept where we are and move forward. The parenting process is a journey. When parents understand how they are currently parenting, can listen to what a counselor or parent coach has to offer, and, then, begin to operate from that perspective, life will get better. Some will make it and others won't. This saddens me, but it is true. We all can't be other than where we are and do what we do. There are natural consequences for both.
    Know that someone is listening. A counselor's or coach's response to any parent who is seeking to improve his or her skills should be unconditional positive regard. It takes a lot for us to be willing to say, "I could be better at this." For that, parents should receive reassurance and compassion about our struggles to be good parents to our child or children.
    Feel validated. We all have fears and frustrations in our parenting journey. Counselors should offer validation of those feelings, but above that, they should offer each parent client the education and tools that we need to build those developmentally-friendly parenting practices. Counselors and coaches should support parents in whatever way and for however long it is needed.

Through parent coaching, we learn and grow, both as individuals and as parents. Learning to parent from a position of love, rather than fear or stress, can bring a new level of confidence in the power of our own self-growth and how that impacts our children and our parent/child relationships.

Working together professionals teach parents to:

    Understand in a new way your own parenting stress: what triggers it; what it triggers; and how it is a reflection of how you were parented.
    Appreciate the immense importance of the parent/child relationship, and embrace the new role of comforter and teacher, rather than punisher and discipliner.
    Incorporate methods of repairing your relationship with your child when you mess up (and mistakes happen to us all, no matter how good we are at parenting).
    Set and keep healthy emotional and physical boundaries.
    Calm your stress through deep breathing and reconnecting to the heart-full love you have for your child(ren).
    Reframe your perception of your child's misbehavior as a form of communication from the child. The child is seeking more parental love, guidance and/or discipline.
    Reconnect with joy and play as you interact with your child each day.
    Approach discipline in a new way always with Safety First.

Following are some parenting tips that you can put into practice right now. I think you'll be surprised at the difference in your parent/child relationship that even seemingly small changes will make.

    Remove children from danger or off-limits areas or items, rather than swatting, hitting or using an object.
    Replace harmful or off-limits objects in an infant or toddler hand (or mouth) with something that is okay for them to have.
    Be preventative and proactive by baby-proofing your living area. You set yourself and Baby up for failure if you keep precious or fragile objects within reach.
    Have a pre-arranged parenting buddy to call when Baby's behavior pushes you near the edge and you feel you are losing control of your 'cool.' You can also set up a predetermined word or phrase to text for help in this area.
    Provide intense supervision, comfort, and calm interactions. Insist upon the same loving care-giving attitudes and practices from daycare workers, family, friends, nannies, and babysitters as you provide to your child.

Foundation for Life

Early experiences influence a child lifelong. These experiences become our beliefs and our beliefs determine our behaviors, even when we don't want them to. Beliefs are self-reinforcing and, one by one, get stacked in our psyche. Our beliefs can be sometimes helpful, sometimes not, and sometimes in conflict.

Beliefs determine our actions. Are we doomed? Can they be changed? Thank goodness the answers are "No" and "Yes." No, we are not doomed, and "Yes" they can be changed. It isn't easy, but it is doable. We have the ability because of neuroplasticity (the ability of our brains to develop and change) to learn and grow and develop ourselves life-long.

Our beliefs about ourselves, others, life, what is possible for us, what isn't possible, whether we are lovable or unlovable, valuable or not valuable, good enough or not good enough, determine what we believe about children, spanking and child development.

As parents, we have to be willing to examine ourselves and our beliefs so that we can change our beliefs, and by doing that, we change the trajectory of our lives and the lives of our children.

Stress Is Not a Calming Interaction
We are a stress and child developmentally illiterate society. We don't understand our own adult stress. As adults, we are able to ignore and deny our bodily sensations and emotions. Because we are able to get through our day and accomplish our survival needs, we seem to think we don't get stressed. That is, until late at night we wonder why our shoulders are so tense and tight or we can't sleep and we need "something" to relax us.
A stressed-out parent cannot calm a stressed-out child.
The Parent Non-Blame Zone
Parents do the best they can with what they know. By the time parents seek counseling or coaching, they have usually spent years struggling with their child's acting out or "bad" behavior. They and the child or children are stressed out. Their confidence in their abilities to parent has declined and they are frustrated and in distress.
Any family counselor or parent coach should allow parents to:

• Enter a non-blaming zone. No matter how hard we try, sometimes our best effort just doesn't hit the mark. However, that doesn't mean we need verbal "spankings" or to be made to feel guilty by others or by ourselves. The past is the past and we are starting fresh from this point.
• Accept where we are and move forward. The parenting process is a journey. When parents understand how they are currently parenting, can listen to what a counselor or parent coach has to offer, and, then, begin to operate from that perspective, life will get better. Some will make it and others won't. This saddens me, but it is true. We all can't be other than where we are and do what we do. There are natural consequences for both.
• Know that someone is listening. A counselor's or coach's response to any parent who is seeking to improve his or her skills should be unconditional positive regard. It takes a lot for us to be willing to say, "I could be better at this." For that, parents should receive reassurance and compassion about our struggles to be good parents to our child or children.
• Feel validated. We all have fears and frustrations in our parenting journey. Counselors should offer validation of those feelings, but above that, they should offer each parent client the education and tools that we need to build those developmentally-friendly parenting practices. Counselors and coaches should support parents in whatever way and for however long it is needed.

Through parent coaching, we learn and grow, both as individuals and as parents. Learning to parent from a position of love, rather than fear or stress, can bring a new level of confidence in the power of our own self-growth and how that impacts our children and our parent/child relationships.
Working together professionals teach parents to:

• Understand in a new way your own parenting stress: what triggers it; what it triggers; and how it is a reflection of how you were parented.
• Appreciate the immense importance of the parent/child relationship, and embrace the new role of comforter and teacher, rather than punisher and discipliner.
• Incorporate methods of repairing your relationship with your child when you mess up (and mistakes happen to us all, no matter how good we are at parenting).
• Set and keep healthy emotional and physical boundaries.
• Calm your stress through deep breathing and reconnecting to the heart-full love you have for your child(ren).
• Reframe your perception of your child's misbehavior as a form of communication from the child. The child is seeking more parental love, guidance and/or discipline.
• Reconnect with joy and play as you interact with your child each day.
• Approach discipline in a new way always with Safety First.

Following are some parenting tips that you can put into practice right now. I think you'll be surprised at the difference in your parent/child relationship that even seemingly small changes will make.

• Remove children from danger or off-limits areas or items, rather than swatting, hitting or using an object.
• Replace harmful or off-limits objects in an infant or toddler hand (or mouth) with something that is okay for them to have.
• Be preventative and proactive by baby-proofing your living area. You set yourself and Baby up for failure if you keep precious or fragile objects within reach.
• Have a pre-arranged parenting buddy to call when Baby's behavior pushes you near the edge and you feel you are losing control of your 'cool.' You can also set up a predetermined word or phrase to text for help in this area.
• Provide intense supervision, comfort, and calm interactions. Insist upon the same loving care-giving attitudes and practices from daycare workers, family, friends, nannies, and babysitters as you provide to your child.

Foundation for Life
Early experiences influence a child lifelong. These experiences become our beliefs and our beliefs determine our behaviors, even when we don't want them to. Beliefs are self-reinforcing and, one by one, get stacked in our psyche. Our beliefs can be sometimes helpful, sometimes not, and sometimes in conflict.
Beliefs determine our actions. Are we doomed? Can they be changed? Thank goodness the answers are "No" and "Yes." No, we are not doomed, and "Yes" they can be changed. It isn't easy, but it is doable. We have the ability because of neuroplasticity (the ability of our brains to develop and change) to learn and grow and develop ourselves life-long.
Our beliefs about ourselves, others, life, what is possible for us, what isn't possible, whether we are lovable or unlovable, valuable or not valuable, good enough or not good enough, determine what we believe about children, spanking and child development.
As parents, we have to be willing to examine ourselves and our beliefs so that we can change our beliefs, and by doing that, we change the trajectory of our lives and the lives of our children.


Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/8020233

Constant Conflict With Your Ex Over the Kids? Maybe You Need a Parenting Ref

Statistically some 80% of separating parents settle their plans for the care of their children between themselves or with some support from mediators or lawyers. Of the remaining 20%, most of these will settle during a court process but before trial. Typically less than 5% of separating parents see their matter go to trial to achieve a final settlement. You would think by that point though, everything would be over and people would get on with living their lives. Not true.

There is a small percentage of parents, estimated at some 1% to 5% who even in the face of a settlement continue to have ongoing conflict regarding the care of their children. Somehow or other, these are the parents for whom something always arises to be of issue.

These are regarded as the highest of the high conflict parents and also statistically, it is not uncommon for one or both to have a personality disorder, anger issues and/or a substance/alcohol abuse issue. This is a parent who may be the proverbial wolf in sheep's clothing, cloaked so as to conceal their hidden nature. It is this small group of separated parents that tie up the vast majority of not only the Court's time, but also time from many other community services including police, child protective services, counseling and medical services and domestic violence shelter services.

Enter the parenting ref. More formally known as a Parenting Coordinator, this is a person most often with a mental health background and a working knowledge of family law. The Parenting Coordinator plays a combination of three roles to help high conflict parents settle disputes and hopefully resolve other issues that give rise to ongoing problems. The roles include educator, mediator and arbitrator.

Playing out their three roles, the Parenting Coordinator is privately contracted by parents to hear and help settle disputes. To settle those disputes, the Parenting Coordinator plies their three roles.

At times education may serve to help the parents achieve a settlement based on a better understanding of the issues between them and impact upon the children. When this is insufficient, then the Parenting Coordinator may help the conflicted parents find some sort of middle ground through the process of mediation. However, when neither education nor mediation resolves the matters at hand, then by contractual agreement, the Parenting Coordinator is empowered by the parents to arbitrate and order a binding solution, as if in a Court of law. The contractual agreement requires the parents to be bound by the binding solution of the Parenting Coordinator.

Given the Parenting Coordinator by definition is working with persons prone to conflict that are unlikely to be satisfied with solutions not of their preference, the Parenting Coordinator can next become the target of scorn by a parent dissatisfied with the imposed solution. While parents may freely enter into a contractual agreement to purchase the service of the Parenting Coordinator, it doesn't mean they will be pleased with the outcome and not turn on their very service provider.

Thereafter the tactics seen used by one parent against the other can be very well directed towards the Parenting Coordinator. The dissatisfied parent may seek to undermine the professional credibility of the service provider to not only wreak revenge but to undo the binding solution.

Included among the strategies of an angry dissatisfied parent to discredit their service provider are postings on the Internet of a spurious and vexatious nature absolutely vilifying the service provider. In addition, the angry dissatisfied parent may also make complaints against the service provider through their licensing body, again with spurious and vexatious allegations of professional misconduct.

It is not uncommon for parents who seek to undermine the professional livelihood and credibility of their service provider to be highly articulate and at least reasonably educated. Ability to articulately present one's views and issues can give an air of credibility to the complaints. However, unbeknownst to the reader of the parent's complaints are the distortions of facts, the twists and concocted allegations and outright lies that are part and parcel of that parent's psychological make-up. In other words, vehemently expressing oneself doesn't mean that what one is expressing actually represents the truth. The sheep's clothing hides the wolf.

Given the bind of confidentiality, this is also not a level playing field. The complaining parent is free to say whatever comes to mind, but leaves the Parenting Coordinator with no means of public defense. Worse still is when a parent with their vitriol can gain media attention and support for their position, given no opposing view can be provided in view of confidentiality provisions.

These things happen in this profession which begs the question as to why anyone would want to take on the job.

The only answer is that Parenting Coordinators care.

In particular, they care about what happens to children subject to ongoing parental animosity and conflict. It is well known in this profession that the most significant indicator of poor outcomes for children of separated parents is unremitting parental conflict. Not only is the Parenting Coordinator an unsung hero in the lives of children subject to ongoing parental conflict, but often the only line of defense tasked with bringing some sense of peace and stability to better assure a reasonable developmental outcome for children who deserve better.

Should you read or hear about the untoward actions of a Parenting Coordinator in the absence of a defense, think twice about taking it at face value. The issues attributed to the Parenting Coordinator may just be the projection of issues originating with the complainant. A complainant's statement doesn't equal a truth.