What does Coaching kids and teens look like with me?
As a Kid Coach, working with kids is such a blessing! I love having the opportunity to hear their hearts. Safety and trust are the utmost of importance to me. I firmly believe that creating a foundation of trust for them is the element that creates a lasting client/coach relationship with your children.
For this reason, I don't move fast with them. I allow the hour to be theirs for the first couple of sessions. Children don't have much control or say in a lot of areas, so I like them to feel they are in control in our sessions (within reason of course).
I try to create an atmosphere of calm. I will let them know, "This is your hour. What do you want to talk about? What is on your heart today that is heavy? What is on your heart that is light?" I share that anything they tell me is safe with me. It will not be shared with anyone else unless they threaten to harm themselves, others or if it pertains to anything illegal. I share that with the parents as well.
When it comes to parents and families, I often invite them in on the first session. This gives the parents the opportunity to meet me and to also feel safe leaving their child/children with me for an hour.
Another option is a quick 15-minute meeting with the whole family if the children are younger. This allows the children to become familiar with me, the parents to see how I interact with their children and vice versa. It also allows time for the parents to ask me any questions they have and to see if we are a good fit.
Children are such a blessing and a gift to us. It hurts my heart to see the amount of anxiety and depression they have to carry and battle these days.
Covid really created a fear and anxiety in a lot of kids. The lockdown, isolation, separation. They would often share with me that they felt like something was wrong with them. It took children that were social, and it created children that now have social anxiety.
Social media is another factor for children. They see only perfection watching influencers. This creates an unrealistic expectation they put on themselves to measure up to the people on the screen. People only post their perfect selfies; this also creates an unrealistic expectation. "Why can't I be as pretty, thin, smart, perfect as them?"
We also have a level of bullying that takes place on social media. These are issues we did not have to worry about growing up coming from a time without social media. It's a world parents now have to learn to navigate through and learn about as well. An area we as parents have to learn how to protect our children for bullying and predators as well as the physical world.
Let's talk divorce. Sadly, it is common, and our children are in the middle whether they want to be or not. Divorce is extremely traumatic for children. It doesn't matter how much they are loved and protected, their world and foundation have been shifted. I once had a 15-year-old boy say to me,
"You want to know what my two biggest fears are?
I asked, "What are they?"
He responded with, "Divorce and death."
That is very deep and profound.
Another child who is 6 years old told me, "I feel like there is a war within me right now." He explained, "I want my parents together, but I also want them to be happy. Ugh, it's so hard! It makes my emotions too
big and I just want them to be small!"
We often don't see or hear about the weight they carry, the thoughts they have. They learn to regulate themselves, rather than us as parents teaching and helping them to regulate what they are feeling and thinking.
Children are all about the right here and right now. When you take away their foundation as they know it, it is traumatic on them. Often times they become weaponized in divorce by one or both parents. This creates more anxiety and fears. It can also create an element of codependency, as they then feel like they have to pick sides and care for one or both parents in a way that they then don't realize how they themselves are feeling or what they need because they are more worried about what the parents are feeling. Protecting the parent(s).
Anxiety is very real in children, and they usually don't know how to articulate what they are feeling. I often tell parents that anxiety is like a tornado going on inside of them. Calm on the outside, a raging storm on the inside.
Thoughts they have constantly...
"Will I be judged at school?"
"What will they think of my clothes?"
"Who will I sit with at lunch?"
"What if my friends aren't there?"
"What if I fail my test?"
"What if I say something wrong?"
"What will we talk about"
"What if I sound dumb?"
"What if my teacher thinks I'm stupid for not knowing something?"
"What if my classmates think I'm stupid for not knowing something?
So, how do I help? I listen to their hearts. I offer Alternative Thinking; also known as Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) I use this practice to replace negative thoughts with positive thoughts.
Example: "My friend ignored me in the hall today. What did I do wrong? How can I fix it? How can I make them happy again?"
Alternative thinking: "My friend didn't look at me in the hall. I hope they are ok. I wonder if they are having a bad day, or something may have happened to them?"
This allows them to refocus and realize it isn't always about what they did wrong or a negative against them. The response I get from my child clients, "I hadn't thought of it that way."
Action forward goals, a safe place, trust, alternative thinking is the foundation to which I work with children.
As a parent of four children, I am very passionate about giving children a voice and the ability to be heard. They carry a lot of weight on their shoulders in this world and can often get lost in the noise and hustle and bustle of our busy days.
It's up to us as parents and caregivers to provide safety and trust as well as help them learn to regulate their feelings and emotions. This is something that is hard for even adults to do.
As a parent myself, I want you to know I am honored when I have the privilege of working with your children.
Their growth, ability to thrive, flourish, have a healthy self-image, self-worth, a voice, to know they matter is what I strive to offer them.
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