Why Parents Need Coaching Skills with Elaine Taylor Klaus

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Why Parents Need Coaching Skills with Elaine Taylor Klaus

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The goal of parenting is not to control the path. It is to help our kids learn how to navigate their own. My guest this week is Elaine Taylor-Klaus, and we are talking about something I wish every parent had access to: basic coaching skills. Elaine describes coaching as an empowerment-based, strength-based, collaborative way of communicating. Instead of always telling a child what we think they should do, coaching helps them become more aware of who they are, how they operate, what matters to them, and what they want to do next. That does not mean parents stop teaching. Elaine made a distinction during our conversation that gave me actual goosebumps: there is a difference between teaching someone and creating an environment that helps them learn. Sometimes our kids need information from us. And sometimes we can ask a question that helps them discover something for themselves. "What happens when you try it that way?" "What do you notice?" "What do you think might work?" When the insight comes from the child, they have more ownership of it. We use the classic school planner as an example. If the goal becomes "use the planner," we can spend an enormous amount of energy trying to get a kid to use a tool that may not work particularly well for their brain. But the planner is not really the goal. The goal is for the child to know what they need to do and when they need to do it. Once we get clear on that, we can problem-solve together. Maybe the answer is a planner. Maybe it is something else entirely. The useful question becomes, "How will you know what you need to do?" That shift from directing to collaborating requires something else from parents: a willingness to live with some uncertainty. We start parenting with all kinds of ideas about who our child will be, what they will do, how they will develop, and what their future will look like. And then we actually get to know our child. They have their own brain, their own timeline, their own strengths, and their own ideas about what they want. Elaine talks about parenting as a gradual process of letting go of some of our vision so that we can make room for theirs. That can be especially complicated when your child's path does not look like the paths of their same-age peers. You may feel completely settled about your child doing things differently, and then another milestone or comparison comes along and brings some of those feelings right back. I describe it as spiraling forward. We are not starting over. We are meeting the same work from a different place. We also talk about the stories parents tell ourselves. My child should be doing this by now. Other kids their age can do it. I could do it when I was that age. If they cannot do this now, what happens when they are 24? Elaine shared the example of a parent who was upset that her 12-year-old kept leaving crumbs on the floor while watching television. Underneath that frustration was a fear that someday her daughter would not be able to keep an apartment clean. I called it "fearing forward." We take something happening today and turn it into a story about our child's entire future. Coaching gives us another option. We can notice the story, ask whether it is helping us understand the child in front of us, and reframe it in a way that gives us somewhere useful to go next. And finally, Elaine gives us one very practical assignment: Put the stick down. A lot of us learned to motivate ourselves with criticism. We beat ourselves up for what we should have done, what we forgot, where we fell short, and all the ways we believe we should be doing better. Elaine invites parents to literally imagine putting that stick down. Being kinder to ourselves does not mean ignoring the things that need our attention. It gives us more room to be calm, curious, and available to the child in front of us. And honestly, that may be some of the most important parenting work we do. Key Takeaways Coaching gives parents a collaborative, strength-based way to help children build self-awareness, ownership, and agency.Parenting naturally begins with a lot of directing, but children increasingly need opportunities to discover solutions rather than simply receive instructions.Asking curious questions can help children develop their own insights, which often creates more ownership than being told what to do.A tool should serve the actual goal. If a planner does not help a child know what they need to do, another system may work better.Parenting involves gradually letting go and making room for children to develop their own vision of who they are and what they want.Children do not need to follow the same timeline as their peers for their development to be meaningful or successful.Expectations about what children "should" be doing can come from our own history, other families, or cultural ideas rather than the child in front of us.Recognizing the story we are telling ourselves gives us the opportunity to choose a perspective that is more useful...

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