Parent Education & Coaching
Coaching
Karen is available to meet with individual parents as a coach in support of the evolving youth and parent relationship. Through conversation, there may be an opportunity to improve communication, adjust expectations or approach challenging parenting situations differently as parents consider the parent/child connection with new possibilities and guidance. Offering a parental perspective outside of a counseling or therapeutic environment is often just the boost or motivation parents need to affect change in day to day patterns of relating with their children. As the parent of three adolescents, Karen can offer experience and compassion around parenting challenges for families seeking reflection and understanding.
Payment arrangements will discussed prior to scheduling. For more information about coaching with Karen send an email to: karen@bodybasicsandbeyond.com
Parent Villages
Parent Villages are parent education evenings offered through schools on topics relevant to families with pre-teens as they prepare for parenting during adolescence.
Parent Villages are part presentation, part group discussion, offering parents the opportunity to be exposed to new parenting concepts as well as participate in guided discussions with other parents beyond their typical social groups. Parent Villages invite parents to open up to new perspectives, values and ideas. Hearing the challenges and experiences of other parents creates a sense of compassion and community around parenting pre-teens and teens.
Parent Villages are:
- Open to both public and private schools as parent education evenings
- Designed for parents with children in grades 6-8, though grade 5 parents are invited if they would like to attend
- 1.5 to 2 hours in length depending on the size of the village
Payment arrangements will discussed prior to scheduling. To schedule a Parent Village please email: karen@bodybasicsandbeyond.com
Parent Village Topics (subject to change):
Holding Healthy Boundaries: Preparing for Adolescence
“Can you please add some restrictions to my life?” said no child ever. But that is exactly what they want. In interviews, teens stated that even though they don’t/didn’t like boundaries they repeatedly said that boundaries provided them with a sense of comfort, security and relief.
Setting boundaries based on parents’ value system is in the job description of “parent” and is essential to the healthy development of youth. It’s important to practice managing boundary testing now when they are children rather than waiting to set and manage limits when they are teens.
This Parent Village focuses on the importance and value of creating and holding healthy boundaries for pre-teens. Topics in this village include:
- Purposeful boundary placement
- The importance of boundary-push back by children
- Boundary adjustments: developmentally and for each child
- Boundaries crossed and consequences
Parent Circle – Sample Discussion Prompts:
“What boundaries do you hold with your child?” and “What boundaries does your child challenge the most and how do you hold strong?”
“What boundaries do remember having as a child around this age and how are you parenting in relation to them?”
Your Family’s Tech Values
Parenting a pre-teen would be challenging enough without the world of technology and unfettered access to information parents now have to navigate with their children. All generations of parents are tasked with parenting around issues they didn’t experience as children, but the task of setting and holding tech boundaries in the context of ever changing and intimately entwined technological devices is uniquely urgent. Whether they are in the home or not, these devices and their temptations are in children’s lives and call for parents both individually and as a community to create and maintain cyber values and boundaries.
Our youth’s emotional, social, physical and developmental health is being challenged as a result of overuse of technology. In the U.S., children ages 8-12 are spending an average of 6 hours a day on screens both at school and in the home. As a result, the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends parents of 5-18 year olds place consistent limits on time spent using any media. Currently they are recommending 1-2 hours per day.
This Parent Village focuses on providing context of the youth’s experience of technology and offering actionable suggestions, offering parents the tools necessary to build a family tech plan for now or for the future. Topics in this village include:
- Current research on pre-teen and parent phone use
- Identifying personal and family tech values
- Family conversation prompts: Tech Talks
- Book and resource recommendations
Parent Circle – Sample Discussion Prompts:
- “What technology do you have in your home and what boundaries do you hold around it?”
- “How does your use of technology align (or not align) with your tech values? What might your child say about your tech use?”
Life Conversations at Home: Ongoing Check-Ins with Your Youth
“How are things going?” is a typical question parents ask in hopes of initiating a conversation with pre-teens. Conversations can quickly freeze with the typical “fine” or “good” response. Though it may appear that youth don’t want to talk to parents, the opposite is true. Of teens interviewed between the ages of 13-20, 80% said it was difficult to talk to their parents about important issues in their lives. Why is this?
It is common to hear youth state that they just want their parents to listen to them when they bring up an issue or problem, but parents are quick to jump on the “fix it” wagon with advice and action items. Parents tend to label their children as not wanting to talk to them and may even reactively stop checking in with them.
This Parent Village focuses on what is and isn’t working when parents check in with pre-teens and offers suggestions for opening communication between them. Topics in this village include:
- Staying curious vs pushing for information
- Acknowledging and handling emotional hooks
- Fostering conversation awareness and management
- Avoiding loading up chats with topics·
- Chat openers and closers
Parent Circle – Sample Discussion Prompts:
- “What is working and what isn’t working in conversations with your child?”
- “What did conversations with your parents look like? How are you (or aren’t you) bringing those experiences to conversations with your kids?”
Parent Evenings
Parent evenings are similar to Parent Villages, but with a smaller group of 6-10 parents from across a community. These evenings are opportunities for parents to gather around a topic that relevant in supporting and guiding the youth in their lives as they develop from childhood through adolescence. These evenings provide parents with information to increase their knowledge around this essential and important time in a youth’s life. Parents also have the opportunity to have discussions, sharing ideas and values.
Parent Evening Topics (subject to change):
Parent Evening topics include the same topics as offered for Parent Villages previously described with some additions:
- Holding Healthy Boundaries: Preparing for Adolescence
- Cyber Values and Your Family
- Life Conversations at Home: Ongoing Check-Ins with Your Youth
- Dad’s and Developing Daughters
- Parenting: What We Manage & What We Allow
- Keeping Parents as The Compass Point
- The Social, Emotional, and Physical Changes of Adolescence
General Information:
Parent evenings:
- Are typically offered during the summer months. However parents are welcome to pull a small group of parents together for parent evenings during the school year.
- Designed for parents with children in grades 6-8, though grade 5 parents are invited if they would like to attend
- 1.5 to 2 hours in length depending on the size of the group
Payment arrangements will discussed prior to scheduling. To schedule a Parent Evening please email: karen@bodybasicsandbeyond.com