Coaching Resolves Digital Dilemmas

Disclaimer: I believe parent coaching helps to solve/resolve any parenting challenge, not only media-digital dilemmas–that’s why I created the Parent Coach Certification® Training Program. I was, and still am, convinced that a coaching process holds the key to unlock and activate parenting strengths leading to greater confidence and capabilities. Parent coaching, at its core, empowers and emboldens.

The impetus for developing parent coaching as a new form of family support, however, came from my deep desire to help moms and dads find more ease and enjoyment in their parenting in our media, now digital, world.  I love helping families, as I like to say, live productively with technology—rather than living mindlessly for technology. I truly believe that when parents get screen technologies right, children’s development can flourish. And on a deeper level: Society triumphs or crumbles according to how parents resolve digital dilemmas. (No pressure, right?) But there are tremendous pressures, as we know. The pressure of making sure children belong to their peer group, the pressure of finding ways to get our daily work done without giving a smart phone as a handy boredom remedy; the pressure of justifying our parenting behaviors to other parents.

While parents can (and do) read books about controlling kids’ screen time, glean research from the Web, talk to one another and share sound ideas, and go to workshops and trainings for important information—all valid forms of seeking answers—parent coaching is a superior form of resolving digital dilemmas.

Here are five reasons why:

#1 Coaching is always personalized.

Because parent and coach are in a personal relationship, together they carefully craft every new idea or fresh approach based upon the unique needs of that particular family. Specific solutions are examined and explored always with the context of the entire family system—the specifics of the children’s ages, developmental levels, academic progress, motivation, as well as parental schedules, stresses, strengths, and past struggles, for instance. Each family is like a delicate snowflake—entirely its own beautiful design. Starting from there, coaching enables parents to consciously design a mindful plan that works well for their personal circumstances and unique needs.

#2 Coaching replaces “I should” with “I want.”

It’s become fashionable to tell parents what they should be doing. “Put that cell phone down.” “Don’t text when your kids are in the room.” “Remember, you are a model for your kids.” And on it goes, until many parents, like some of my clients, feel like complete failures when it comes to dealing pro-actively with their kids’ (and their own) digital dilemmas.

Over time, though, PCI parent coaching reminds them that they don’t have to be vulnerable victims of our tech tsunami. And it’s actually reasonable to let go of any guilt or shame. It makes sense to do so to bring back the energy needed for momentum.

Once parents manage to do away with the “shoulds” and focus on what it is they really want, a new world of clarity, freedom and huge relief awaits. I enjoy asking parents questions like:

• What is it that you really want for yourself? Your children?
• If you think about what you really want, how would your children’s screen use change over the three months during our coaching process?
• When your child is an adult, what would you want his screen use to look like? Why?

Such questions propel parents back to their values. When free to choose from their deepest desires for what’s best for their children, parents often surprise themselves with the creative and sustainable ideas they initiate regarding screens in their children’s lives. I am delighted by these solutions, but never surprised. The inherent nature of the coaching process is all about “I want.” Never, “I should.”

#3 Coaching puts peers in perspective.

Digital peer pressure is real. A  study published in the Journal of Adolescent Health examined the impact of social media posts on the behaviors of 1500 teens in Southern California and found that teens who viewed pictures of their friends partying were more likely to mimic the behavior by indulging in alcohol and smoking cigarettes themselves. And as most parents of teens know from experience, the report concluded that virtual peers are even more influential than a teen’s real-life friends.

Another study examined 2,000 teens’ personal accounts, noting six major digital stressors affecting today’s teens:

• Impersonation
• Receiving mean and harassing personal attacks
• Public shaming and humiliation
• Breaking and entering into accounts and devices
• Pressure to comply—digital peer pressure
• Feeling smothered—the pressure of keeping up with social media, especially with texting

While digital peer pressure is listed as one stress—we can see that all of them are related to social interaction with their peers.

Through a coaching process, parents begin to understand that even their rebellious teens want and very much need their guidance with these significant digital, daily stressors. Kids need time to talk to caring adults who can help them sort out how to cope with these pressures and still keep their friends. They need an adult’s discerning mind to ask questions so that the developing minds of teens can learn how to use digital devices and social media within the context of what is right for them, rather than what is best to fit in with their friends. And for sure, kids need parental love and understanding to grow autonomy and competence that will make them confident in their tech choices.

Social pressure from living in a high-tech society can be addressed head-on when parents come to fully grasp the profound nature of their influence on their kids. I can communicate this to a group of parents listening to a two-hour presentation. But I can’t dig in with one parent to help them develop productive parenting strategies for digital–age teens, like I can in a coaching process.

Because every parent I coach becomes an engaged participant in the process, creativity flourishes, self-awareness deepens and digital dilemmas dissolve.

Often my clients must confront the adult peer pressure from their own friends—which they haven’t thought of in the same way before I started asking clarifying questions. As parents clarify what they really want and rediscover signature strengths, we both know we are in for a major breakthrough—and their kids will thank them, someday!

#4 Coaching helps parents appreciate their children’s gifts and talents.

In the PCI parent coaching model, we use Appreciative Inquiry as a foundation for our process. Beginning with discovery of strengths—in the parents, the children, the family—coaching gives parents the gift of understanding themselves and their children better before they begin to tackle any concerns.

Let’s face it, we can’t very well solve our problems from a position of weakness. In fact, the more we know about our unique strengths and harness them in the service of reaching our goals, the more efficiently we reach those goals.   A review of literature on executive coaching found coaching is effective in producing change in self-efficacy, psychological capital, and resilience. With a focus on positive, qualities and traits, we can expect to make deeper gains, especially in the areas of self-awareness and self-efficacy.

Parent coaching helps parents uncover and amplify their children’s strengths. With a focus on what is positive, anything is possible.

#5 Coaching supports authentic relationships.

During coaching it becomes obvious that the quality of relationships is directly connected to outcomes. By learning to intentionally care more for their connection with their children than implementing any parenting strategy, they put first things first. As the parent-child bond deepens and grows, so do mutual understanding and openness. Compliance naturally occurs more frequently when children experience genuine parental concern, interest, and appreciation. The family can now co-construct a common purpose for establishing ground rules for screen technologies. Parents who put themselves front and center in their children’s lives soon discover better ways to address and resolve digital dilemmas.

Coaching encourages parents to practice “limbic resonance”—the phenomena of the parent’s and the child’s emotional centers in their brains coming together in alignment, bringing comfort and shared meaning to them both.

The writers of A General Theory of Love, a beautiful book, elegantly summarizes the gifts of limbic resonance and the dire consequences without it:

“Only through limbic resonance with another can [the child] begin to apprehend his inner world. The first few years of resonance prepare [the child’s brain] for a lifetime’s use. One of a parent’s most important jobs is to remain in tune with his/her child, because the parent will focus the eyes the child turns toward the inner and outer worlds. The child faithfully receives whatever deficiencies the parent’s own vision contains. A parent who is a poor resonator cannot impart clarity. Parental inexactness smears the child’s developing precision in reading the emotional world…in adulthood the child will be unable to sense the inner states of others or himself. Deprived of the limbic compass that orients a person to his internal landscape, he will slip though his life without understanding it.”

Through a coaching process parents come to experience the power of their own “limbic compass” first-hand. Growing their relationship with their child with the help of a coach, digital dilemmas gradually recess into the background. Coaching helps parent clarify priorities, making difficult digital decisions and actions do-able. Gradually, solutions replace struggles. Curiosity overcomes fear. Excitement for using screen technologies in the service of the child’s development overshadows anxieties.

By coaching parents, the screen world becomes a new world—a world of creative possibilities and interesting learning. I love introducing this new world to parents. Because when they know that world, they teach their children how to live in it, wisely and well.

Reference:

A General Theory of Love, Thomas Lewis, Fari Amini, and Richard Lannon, Vintage, 2001, p. 36.