Helping Your Children To Be Successful Students
You are your own best coaching tool. Watch yourself closely when coaching your child reading, writing, and maths skills becomes difficult and you feel frustrated. The usual trap is to think that they are the one who is reluctant to coach with you, not paying enough attention, or not remembering the work fast enough. Blame… Continue reading Challenges and difficulties when working with your child are inevitable – how you respond is crucial.
I’m currently working with several young adults aged between 13 and 16. I call them young adults because they are growing up rapidly, and might want more independence, crave more privacy, and like to be shown a high level of respect. Families bring their young adult to me for different reasons. Usually they are concerned… Continue reading Your teen and you: Developing mutual respect.
Goals and agreements help keep your teen steady and strong when life is difficult. Study goals are most easily achieved by taking small steps most days, not by cramming in lots of information just before exams. At this stage of their life they experience rapid growth spurts and sudden surges of hormones. There are often… Continue reading Helping your teen study when they won’t: What to look out for.
A keen proud writer Writing fluently will remain an important skill our children need to master. Your child might not be very interested in writing because they have so many other interesting things they would rather do. Many children are much more interested in doing something physical than sitting down to write. Especially when… Continue reading Writing: first understand why they dislike writing, then negotiate.
It’s time to get serious and decide a win-win deal together. Take turns speaking and listening to each other. For negotiations to be successful create a situation where your teen will stay comfortable and alert enough to listen closely to you. The most important thing you can do is to keep any of your positive… Continue reading Your teen and you – No 4 – time to create a win-win deal
When you create a firm agreement with your teen about anything, including homework, curfews, chores, and polite behaviour, always pay attention to the small print. Take a little time and remember why you want to negotiate a particular new behaviour with your teen. When you are sure that change needs to happen - it will.… Continue reading Your teen and you: No 3 – Pay attention to the small print
Create a study agreement that both you and your teen are happy with. I have some further ideas to increase your chances of success when you negotiate with your teen, about anything really, but in this case the amount of study they are doing. I talk again about the importance of listening openly and without… Continue reading Your teen and you: No 2 – Creating a win-win study agreement.
If you want to develop a more adult relationship with your teen, the next few posts are particularly for you. Be brave and plan to rock the family boat now. There is no better time! While you hold most of the purse strings and are the senior adult in the house, you can still help… Continue reading Developing a respectful relationship with your teen
When it all goes wrong - consequences step up. Consequences step up when your child’s negative behaviours continue beyond acceptable limits after other consequences have been used consistently, and after two strong warnings. Consequences are not punishments! Some or all of these consequences happen immediately and are non-negotiable; but at no point are they a… Continue reading Positive Discipline: When it all goes wrong…what next?
Many family coaches waste valuable energy and coaching time because they either listen to their child too much and feel powerless and exhausted by the excessive arguments and discussion, or they are afraid of losing control of the coaching situation, so don’t listen enough and their child feels powerless. The positive discipline approach means you… Continue reading Positive Discipline: Clinching a fair deal
Families as Coaches 