Course 1: Multi-Dimensional Parent Coaching

How can you more effectively work with the parents you serve? This course provides new insights into the many dimensions of parent coaching using a unique Systems Approach developed by the Parent Coaching Institute. Participants examine the differences and similarities between coaching, counseling, mentoring, and consulting models and discern the important differences for helping them be more effective parent coaches. The basic philosophies of popular life and business coaching are presented and reviewed through the lens of applicability to parent coaching. Participants learn the foundation principles of living systems and appreciative inquiry and begin to apply the PCI coaching model to parent coaching scenarios. Family and cultural systems affecting today's parents are explored through an introduction to The Vital Five™, the five critical developmental needs for children and teens. Participants use inventories and a coaching starter packet to practice supporting parents to focus on what is working in their current situation and how they can best design a plan to meet their identified goals through the coaching process.

Course 1 Objectives

• Distinguish between coaching, counseling, mentoring, and consulting.
• Examine Standard of Integrity and Coaching Ethics of the coaching profession.
• Explore specific philosophies and models of life and business coaching and determine applicability for parent coaching.
• Examine various definitions of coaching through readings and interviews with professional coaches and devise personal definition of coaching.
• Review principles of living systems and apply aspects of new science theory to parent coaching.
• Examine an introduction into the Appreciative Inquiry process, including moving from a deficit discourse to a language of hope; focusing on what is working in a current situation; and understanding the role of positive imagery in reaching goal attainment.
• Apply four aspects of Appreciative Inquiry: Discovery, Dream, Design, and Destiny to the parent coaching relationship and to the parent coaching conversation.
• Explore five developmental needs of children and teens, the cultural impact on these needs, and how parent coaches can assist parents in meeting these needs.
• Practice implementing the PCI parent coaching model and PCI coaching techniques with parents in individual and/or group settings.

Course 2: Coaching Parents to Confront the Third Parent

Parents today must have support to boldly confront the media culture which increasingly acts as the "the third parent" by influence child and teen attitudes, values, and behaviors, and by continually challenging parental standards for their children. This course is designed to help you more clearly understand the impact of media and screen technologies on families. It provides the most up-to-date, compelling information on how the media environment affects learning, literacy, motivation, self-image, and moral and spiritual development as well as research-proven strategies for coaching parents effectively in a media age. Participants use the PCI model of parent coaching as a basis for listening, communicating, and encouraging parents to take actions to design home environments conducive to optimal cognitive, emotional, social, and spiritual development within the existing challenges inherent in the media/cyber environments impacting children and teens today.

Topics covered include: Coaching parents with their child's maximum cognitive and emotional health in mind; specific ways to help parents confront the inauthenticity of our consumer, materialistic culture; and strategies coaches can use to help families focus on their identified priorities and core values.

Course 2 Objectives

• Examine media/cyber environments and their impact on cognitive, emotional, social, and moral/spiritual development of children and teens.
• Investigate the research linking aggressive behaviors with lack of imaginative experiences and literacy skills and develop parent coaching models to support parents to more effectively parent children with behavior/learning "problems."
• Learn various techniques for implementing the PCI parent coaching model to provide relevant information, ongoing support, and authentic affirmation to parents who want to more effectively confront "the third parent."
• Research the latest brain research on child and adolescent development and learn principles and strategies for translating this information into useful tools parents can use in their everyday reality with their children and teens.
• Address the parental challenges of raising children in our consumer, materialistic culture by providing coaching language, techniques, ideas, and assessment tools to more effectively guide parents in restoring identified family values within the home.
• Review and develop coaching strategies to help parents discover ways to set up the home to be a media-literate environment and methods for teaching critical viewing skills and creative uses of all screen technologies for children and teens based on principles of appreciative inquiry.
• Practice coaching parents in individual or group settings using the PCI model, logging at least 25 hours of coaching practice.

Course 3: Coaching Parents to Appreciate the Wonder Within

Today's parents are caught within a school system based on a mechanistic model that perpetuates deficit mentalities and actions. This course provides a framework of affirming principles and a compilation of practical strategies to help parents effectively support and enhance their children's school success. The basic premise of the course is that parents do that best by focusing on their own internal strengths, as well as those of their children. The course examines three important areas for assisting parents within the current educational paradigm: the roles of parenting styles and children's learning styles for a better understanding of both parents' and children's behaviors; the usefulness of intrinsic motivation techniques to engage new levels of aliveness, capacity, and creativity within the family; and the key components for parents to become effective, appreciative advocates for their children. Participants practice the PCI parent coaching model as a basis for listening, communicating, and encouraging parents to take actions in the best interests of their children.

Topics covered include: the relationship between parenting styles, children's learning styles and developmental stages; specific ways to address the increased labeling and use of prescription drugs at earlier and earlier ages; coaching parents to use intrinsic motivation techniques for personal growth as well as with their children; and discovering “out of the box” solutions for helping parents navigate the school system with ease. The course addresses concepts regarding the nature of change and parent coaches as change catalysts.

Course 3 Objectives

• Examine the impact of knowledge of parenting styles on parents' perceptions and appreciation of self and children.
• Consider the interrelatedness of parenting styles, children's learning styles, and their developmental stages, and examine the consequences of coaching for self-knowledge in these areas.
• Practice compiling questions which increase parents' appreciation of themselves, their children, and their current situation.
• Explore the factors related to intrinsic motivation within a living system.
• Evaluate a model of intrinsic motivation based on self-concept and self-determination, and assess its usefulness to parent coaching.
• Consider the components of Appreciative Parenting and practice them when coaching and/or working with parents.
• Examine the nature of change and the coach as a change catalyst through course readings and small group discussions.
• Determine a working definition of “Appreciative Advocacy” and apply it to helping parents support their children's school success.
• Consciously use more intrinsic motivation methods when working with and/or coaching parents.
• Determine coaching style, methods of motivation, and understanding of course material to date through self-assessments.
• Practice coaching parents and role-playing coaching parents in individual or group settings using the PCI model, logging at least 25 hours of coaching practice.

Course 4: Transformational Parent Coaching

In this course participants examine and design productive approaches for helping parents understand the power they hold to effect positive change in their lives, with their children, and in the world. Teachers, counselors, parent educators, mentors, and coaches will find innovative ideas and exciting strategies for helping families move from a culture of despair to one of hope and vision.

Using the PCI coaching model, students develop a skill-set to not only "think out of the box" when working to support parents, but also to "act out of the box" as well. This means that those of us working with parents must utilize all our creativity, all of our determination, and all of our skills and talents to find a better way. It is long overdue that parents find support and meaningful exchanges which bring them confidence, peace, and deep satisfaction in their parenting. Since enduring, positive change on any large societal scale must first begin with changes in families on a small scale, this course provides meaningful ways to articulate to parents that parenting well means changing the world and their children's future. Since this is the final course in the PARENT COACH CERTIFICATION® training program, the basic goal is to assist and equip the student to accept and develop his/her role as a catalyst for transformational change in our world.

Course 4 Objectives

• Explore current trends in our society that negatively impact parental empowerment and examine the usefulness of Berman's "monastic option" as a parent coaching tool.
• Apply the 4-D's—Discover, Dream, Design, and Destiny—to coaching for parental empowerment.
• Envision the "ideal society" and relate imaginings to practical application when working with parents.
• Examine small group facilitation skills and strategies, and compare and contrast them to individual coaching processes.
• Role-play small group parent coaching with colleagues using the PCI model and Appreciative Inquiry processes.
• Collect coaching resources to support small group coaching sessions.
• Apply Hudson's four phases of the adult life cycle and his identified ten life skills for managing the renewal cycle to the core principles of extreme self-care and building a personal foundation.
• Consider how the "renewal cycle" impacts both parents and coaches, and how coaching can be adapted to enhance the beauty of each phase of life.
• Design a "case study" of one parent coached, apply course information to the coaching process, and evaluate the perceived effectiveness of the process.
• Determine for self what it means to be a cultural catalyst, competent catalyst, and conscious catalyst as a parent coach.
• Practice coaching parents and role-playing coaching parents in individual or group settings using the PCI model, logging at least 50 hours of coaching practice.