What if schools offered parent coaching to any parents who wanted it?

The teachers’ lounge is rife with “Those parents …” talk, to the point that some teachers avoid spending their free time with their cohorts. I think it’s natural, really, to look to the parents for where things are going wrong with kids in school, but I also feel like there’s a great deal of untapped potential that we can access. I’m like that — I always see how things can improve, so only continue reading this if you’re with me on this.

Two Western Wisconsin school districts have awakened to the idea that if they find the resources to hire Certified Parenting Coaches to support parents in forming safe and healthy connections with their children, things go a lot better at school. They’re doing that, and it’s working.

Instead of staying focused on the lack of support for schools from pparents, though, I want to tell you the story of Eli, a 10-year-old boy who struggled mightily when assigned a 5th grade math assignment. He would crumple up his paper and loudly protest that he couldn’t do the work, disrupting the entire class. When he went out to the playground, he would argue if others tried to direct the play, and would lash out verbally and physically when the kids didn’t listen to him.

His parents’ school-sponsored coach was there to offer some ideas from Present Moment Parenting (written by yours truly) and helped them learn that the key to resolving the issues at school was to make home life a lot more peaceful. She shared that Eli’s outbursts came from a “feeling unseen” perspective to a “feeling seen” one, which helped to ease his cry for connection, otherwise known as “acting out.”

In the interest of turning school district’s outdated policies on “discipline” (the root word of which is “teaching”) it’s time to look at the root of behaviors at home and at school to heal the hearts of our children. When they feel seen and heard, the “see me, connect with me, I don’t feel emotionally safe” behaviors lose their purpose.

For the kids’, parents’, and schools’ sake, lets get busy and find a way to hire parent coaches.