1) Information About Child Development

We as parents often don’t know what we don’t know. Which makes sense because our culture implies that we are experts in parenting simply by virtue of becoming parents. We all come to learn in our own sometimes challenging ways that that simply isn’t true. 

Before implementing any practical strategies, it helps to have context for what will best serve their child, right here, right now for the age and stage they’re at. Parent coaches can educate parents about stages of brain development and what those stages look like in terms of language, emotions, cognition, and physical activity. When you learn about what your own children are capable of in any stage of development, you can create realistic expectations for communication, behavior, and social interaction. 

This benefit of knowledge creates a massive shift in perspective and leads to you and your child experiencing much more success. When we set the bar too high based on our own experience or based on societal norms and expectations, children often come up short and everyone experiences a sense of failure or defeat.

As we learn to set the bar at a developmentally appropriate level, we can see the same behaviors without that lens of good or bad, success or failure. We begin to see our children in any particular phase for who they are and where they are at developmentally. We can then stop unknowingly shaming our children for doing what is completely typical for their age. Children can feel accepted for who they are, especially when they present challenging behaviors and reactions. 

2) The Empathy Advantage

In her book Unselfie, Michele Borba describes the resounding benefits of teaching children a single skill: empathy. It is indeed a life skill that enhances relationships and creates opportunities for problem solving, cooperation, and kindness. In order for children to learn empathy, they need to experience empathy.

Children need to have caring adults who are willing to see the world through their eyes. Children deserve to be acknowledged and accepted unconditionally. We provide this for our children when we intentionally connect to our child’s perspective and choose to see, hear, feel, and experience what it is that our child is experiencing. 

Working with a parent coach allows you to get step-by-step training in how to develop empathy and how to offer it to yourself and your children. Through this process you learn specific techniques to teach empathy to your children. This parent coaching model of learn, do, teach is repeated through all areas of your evolution.

First, you are introduced to a skill like using empathy. Then you have the opportunity to implement and practice the skill right in your own family, getting continuous support from your coach. Then you become the role model and actively teach your child the very same skill. The whole process unfolds over weeks, months, and years… just like the growth of our own children. 

3) Mutual Trust

Enjoying a relationship based on trust may seem like an abstract outcome that develops by chance rather than intention. Good news, you don’t have to leave it to chance. A trusting relationship gets formed through consistent, open, nonjudgmental communication. This is another skill set that Jai parent coaches teach and practice within their programs. Parent coaches lovingly shine a light on undesirable communication habits and gently guide parents to reframe the communication so that it serves everyone involved.

The skill of communication is taken for granted because people typically view it as simply speaking and listening. The reality is that many forms of “normalized” communication cause severe damage in relationships: blame, comparison, judgment, criticism, and evaluation, are just some examples. 

Practicing healthy communication with neutral observations, personal responsibility, and reflective listening creates a space of freedom and trust upon which children can rely. The real payout for a relationship built on trust is when children get older and face bigger challenges with more serious consequences. We want our children to come to us first with their problems, rather than hide the problems and suffer alone. This happens when our children have already experienced the trust of open communication.

4) Clear Family Values

Parents today are inundated with values promoted through friends, media, celebrities, and experts. These external values are piled onto the existing conditioned values that parents carry from their own upbringing (including family, cultural, or religious values). Anyone can get lost in this maze of mixed messages, so it’s up to each of us to get clear on which values truly matter in our families right now.

One of the most important things you can do as a parent is to get clear on your family values. This process involves taking a close look at the boundaries and expectations that exist (or don’t) in your family. You can even use your reluctance to upholding boundaries as useful information about which values you prioritize. Family values create the framework for every conversation around why as a parent you say yes or no to any particular request or desire. Using family values gives children a solid understanding of your position as their parents, even as they resist it or even violate it. 

Gaining clarity on family values has benefits in the short-term and in the long term. In the short-term we get to feel more confident in the boundaries we have and stay committed to supporting our children to meet our expectations. In the long term, children grow up understanding how to create their own boundaries based on values, which leads to healthier relationships in their adult lives. 

5) Personal Responsibility

Many parents look for a solution, a magic wand, to solve the problems in their families. All the wishing, dreaming, and hoping will unfortunately not create change. Claiming responsibility and taking action is what ultimately will. Through the coaching process parents get daily practice in setting intentions for themselves and reflecting on challenges and successes. This ownership of choices and mistakes is an enormous shift in mindset for most parents, and it provides a new level of freedom in your perspective. 

Adopting a growth mindset has many personal benefits, and it alleviates the judgment, criticism, and shame that so many of us place on ourselves. Choosing to see failure as an opportunity acknowledges the tough moments, and brings purpose to those difficult times. Bringing this mindset into parenting also creates waves of resilience from you to your child. When we make mistakes, take ownership, and learn from the process we teach our children that it is safe to make a mistake, it is courageous to own it, and it is possible to do better the next time.

6) Comfort with Vulnerability

Today’s fast-paced, results-driven world places high demands on parents and their children. There is constant pressure to perform, succeed, and achieve… often at severe costs. It becomes easier to swallow fear, hide shame, and repress anger than to bring those big emotions out into the open. Parents who have spent years protecting themselves with defense mechanisms like blame, projection, and comparison will struggle to connect with their children who demonstrate the very emotions they are trying to avoid.

Increasing comfort with vulnerability means developing a tolerance for discomfort. No, it does not feel good to stand in fear, grief, or rage. And yet it is the willingness to embrace these feelings that builds emotional strength and flexibility. Parent coaching is a steady process of discovering and disengaging emotional defenses, revealing a raw and authentic person who is now able to experience the world and their relationships at a deeper level.

In her book Daring Greatly Brené Brown describes vulnerability as “being all in” and daring “to show up and let ourselves be seen.” Vulnerability is widely recognized and valued as a critical interpersonal skill. Parenting with vulnerability empowers our children to grow up seeing and embracing vulnerability; it is simply part of who they are.

7) Mindfulness

If living through a pandemic has taught the world anything, it’s that every moment matters. Mindfulness is the practice of becoming fully present in the current moment, not getting overwhelmed by past hurt, nor getting anxious about future outcomes.

Parent coaching includes regular practice of mindfulness techniques specifically intended to enable us to suspend pain and doubt in order to be entirely present for our children with calmness and curiosity. This commitment to mindfulness is a way to release expectations of perfection or quick fixes. Mindful parents keep their eyes on the long term outcome of the well being of their children, not just their own comfort and satisfaction in the moment.

Utilizing mindfulness in parenting also supports our children to feel seen, heard, and understood. Parents who are fully present in the moment can actively tune in to their child’s experience instead of dismissing them or punishing them. Children that receive a parent’s full attention, away from distractions, develop an internal sense of self-worth: they know that they matter. Many parents struggle to convey deep acknowledgement and unconditional acceptance of their children; it becomes possible through dedication to mindfulness.

8) A Foundation for Healthy Relationships

Our childrens’ relationships with us lay the groundwork for future relationships like friendships, romantic partnerships, and professional relationships. Our children create stories and beliefs about trust, safety, affection, and worthiness through their childhood experiences. One long-term benefit of parent coaching is that parents help children to develop the personal and strategic skills to create a solid foundation of interpersonal relationships that will support their children throughout their entire lives.

As you integrate the knowledge about child development, emotions, and communication with your commitment to personal reflection and growth, you methodically and intentionally create a relational environment of connection and safety.

From this environment your children develop the confidence, resilience, compassion, and integrity that leads to healthy relationships in the future. These are the children that stand up to playground bullies, walk away from threatening partners, and put their ethics above their paychecks as they navigate their careers.

Taking advantage of parent coaching professionals to help you learn this knowledge and become the parent you want to be, or training in Jai's parent coaching method yourself to learn these parenting skills, is what creates leaders for the next generation.

9) Joy

Parenting is such hard work. It takes grit, perseverance, and humility. This is exactly why parent coaches also focus on joy! The whole reason parents choose to put effort into a new way of parenting is to see the beautiful and inspiring outcome in their children and families. Parent coaching emphasizes celebrating every tiny victory so that you feel the joy resulting from all your hard work. Parents deserve to feel proud of themselves and appreciative of their children. The entire family is lifted up when the intention to celebrate and enjoy each other is present in daily interactions.

Joy also comes from a conscious choice to play. This is not a call to action for buying more toys and games; this is an invitation to surrender to children’s innate desire to be silly, carefree, and creative. Play is the process that children use to learn, explore, heal, and express whatever is happening inside their little worlds. As parents create more opportunities to engage in play, their children respond with renewed enthusiasm and happiness. Playfulness is a sure sign that everyone in the family feels safe, connected, and secure. It is not only a side effect of a healthy family, it’s the healing medicine that all families need.

10) Hope

The greatest benefit that parents receive through parent coaching is an unwavering sense of hope. Hope is a powerful force that enables us to see beyond the challenges in front of us and trust that a different and better future is possible. This feeling is not just a dream; it comes from the evidence of steady progress toward specific goals and the slow release of past hurts through regular, authentic forgiveness. Hope arises from the changes parents experience during their work with a coach, and continues to be a catalyst as they fully integrate peaceful parenting on their own.

The entire structure of Jai’s parent coaching program is intentionally future-focused. This doesn’t mean the past is ignored or rejected. In fact, the past is recognized and honored through regular reflection, and then gets softened and released through self-forgiveness and forgiving others. The past is done and can’t be changed, yet every person knows that past experiences continue to influence their behaviors and thoughts. The intentional practice of forgiveness acknowledges the impact of anything that has already happened, and serves to create space for learning, growth, and recommitment for the future.

Parents who operate in their families and in the world with hope bring light and optimism to their interactions and relationships. Starting each day with renewed hope makes it possible to stop falling into damaging patterns and make real progress toward being the empowered parent who is full of patience, empathy, love and compassion. Leaning into hope gives our children the benefit of the doubt and dissolves criticism and judgment of themselves or others. Hope is abstract and intangible, yet it’s a truly significant benefit of engaging in the parent coaching process.

It is clear that the parent coaching experience goes above and beyond anything we may gain from simply consuming (however educational and inspirational) the latest books or podcasts or seminars on parenting. Joining a community of supportive parents with shared struggles and goals, learning from a mentor with the deepest commitment to living the principles they teach, and taking a holistic approach to understanding all aspects of the parent-self and parent-child relationships leads to immeasurable benefits.

These benefits are felt throughout each week of the parent coaching program, and expand indefinitely as parents continue on their own unique paths into peaceful parenting. Parents notice and enjoy these benefits right away, and they see how they unfold in their children in the long term. Parents who engage in this work can finally rest in confidence knowing that they truly are doing the best parenting possible. It is a way of life that can never be undone. 

If this is the lasting change you want to experience in your family, and guide others to create, apply to become a parent coach today. You get to be the hope for your own family and countless other families who need this hope, too.