Parenting with Confidence,
Intention, and Connection
Intention, and Connection
Working with a parent coach gives parents the chance to be heard, to clarify what’s important to them and to make conscious decisions about how they want to parent. It allows parents the opportunity to step back from the day-to-day struggles of parenting and instead, refocus on the ways they always hoped they would parent. In working with a coach, parents work to both clarify their own values and understand their child and the child’s behavior. Throughout the coaching process, parents discover, practice and adopt new perspectives and tools that allow them to parent consciously and from their core — a place that is centered and authentically based on their values and beliefs.
What is Parent Coaching
Parent coaching is a collaborative process between a parent(s) and coach that works to clarify the family’s strengths and the ideals to which they aspire. In doing so, parents gain a deeper understanding of their individual children’s temperaments, understand their parenting styles, and the strengths and challenges that accompany them. The parents and coach work together, developing a vision and implementing strategies, as well as acquiring tools to work toward that vision. The coaching process is deeply supportive and non-judgmental. When parents gain more consciousness to what they bring to their own parenting as well as what personal triggers lead them to power struggles and disconnection with their children, parenting becomes easier. Parents discover the power of their internal knowing, allowing them to find the connection, confidence and the joy they have been seeking.
Parents and coach usually work together weekly for approximately three months. Sessions are one hour in length and take place in person, over the phone, or on Skype.
Gain Clarity
Gain clarity on what is most important to you. What are the non-negotiable boundaries you want to set within your family? Be clear on what you want and avoid unnecessary power struggles.
Gain Appreciation
Deeply understand and accept your children for who they are and learn to create the conditions for them to thrive.
Gain Confidence
Establish clear boundaries and learn how to set limits with connection. When we are confident as parents, our children feel secure and safe to be themselves.
Understand Your Kids
With greater understanding of your children’s behavior you can address what lies underneath the behavior, allowing the behavior to fade as well as work with them on developing skills for their success.
Learn Tools & Strategies
Interact with your children that support both you and your child in ways that work for your specific family. Practice specific tools and strategies that allow you to pause and respond rather than react.
Make Better Decisions
Eliminate the roadblocks so you can be in a centered place where good decisions take place. Enjoy parenting!
WHO -- USES A PARENT COACH?
• Any parent who is struggling with the day-to-day challenges of parenting.
• Parents who have just stepped into the role of parenting and feel overwhelmed.
• Parents who have recently received a diagnosis for their child and could use help and support navigating this new territory.
• Parents who are intrigued, humored, and stumped by parenting their adolescents and want to stay connected to them.
• Parents who are simply feeling they need coaching to parent the way they truly want to parent.
• Parents who struggle with the parenting style of their co-parent and who fear the disharmony may impact their family unit.
• Parents who feel they have lost themselves while parenting their children and would like to find a way back.
• Parents who have just stepped into the role of parenting and feel overwhelmed.
• Parents who have recently received a diagnosis for their child and could use help and support navigating this new territory.
• Parents who are intrigued, humored, and stumped by parenting their adolescents and want to stay connected to them.
• Parents who are simply feeling they need coaching to parent the way they truly want to parent.
• Parents who struggle with the parenting style of their co-parent and who fear the disharmony may impact their family unit.
• Parents who feel they have lost themselves while parenting their children and would like to find a way back.
Any other parent who does not fit the above descriptions but would like some support and guidance … Truly there isn’t any parent who couldn’t benefit from working with a parent coach — we spend years in school learning to do math, but aren’t given any instructions on how to do parenting — a most important task — well.
Get to Know Cindy
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Cindy Kaplan, MA Parent CoachCindy has worked as a parent coach, a family therapist and a yoga practitioner. She is a certified Parent Coach through the Parent Coaching Institute in Seattle, which is the only graduate level training program in the US that offers certification in parent coaching. Cindy’s parenting was profoundly affected by yoga after her daughter was born with cerebral palsy and she became licensed as a practitioner of Yoga for the Special Child. Cindy has also facilitated educational support groups and parenting workshops on a variety of topics.
To learn more about Cindy and understand her philosophy click on her photo above.
ATTEND CINDY’S WORKSHOPS
Services
PRIVATE COACHING
When coaching with Cindy, you will have her with you shoulder to shoulder for three months on average. Coaching sessions are typically one hour in length and are conducted weekly or bi-weekly.
Parents work with Cindy in person, over the phone, or on Skype so you can get the support wherever you are.
Coaching can be helpful for one or two parents. step-parents, and grandparents.
PARENTS OF KIDS WITH SPECIAL NEEDS
The moment a child enters our lives, our world is forever changed. We begin placing expectations and visualizing our life with a child long before they even enter the world. When something unexpected happens to our child either before or during birth, or some point during their childhood, dreams, visions, and expectations are shattered. As a parent of children with special needs, we carry a chronic sense of responsibility that doesn’t always lessen over time. Whether the special needs are physical, emotional or developmental, we can find ourselves feeling isolated and overwhelmed. Taking care of ourselves as parents is challenging and when parenting a child with special needs that becomes twice as challenging and twice as important!
Cindy’s work with parents of children with special needs focuses on a variety of issues including those that arise when parenting more than one child in the family, the complexity of sibling relationships, and ways for parents to care for themselves so that they can be the parent they need to be for their children.
Cindy’s special needs focus encompasses workshops and group / private coaching.
WORKSHOPS
Cindy leads a variety of workshops and presentations. You can attend Cindy’s Workshops. To see where Cindy is next CLICK HERE.
Workshops include but are not limited to:
THE CONNECTED PARENT
Connection is perhaps the most necessary ingredient for personal growth, resiliency, and self-worth. Even with the best of intentions, we disconnect from our children multiple times a day. When our kids feel disconnected, they exhibit undesirable behavior, our buttons get pushed, and we react. When we understand what is beneath their behavior, we can disconnect in order to really connect. We will learn the difference between connecting and disconnecting language, gain an understanding of our children’s behavior, and gain confidence in maintaining authority with limits and boundaries through connection.
THE TEEN YEARS: DEVELOPING AND MAINTAINING CONNECTION
The teen years can be trying and worrisome if we allow it. This is a time in our child’s life where connection is key to helping them be resilient and knowing who they are as individuals. Our years with them at home are now limited and we need to choose whether we connect or disconnect with them at multiple moments throughout the day. They can be our greatest teachers when we allow them to find and speak their voice and to be there for them when they need us. Parents will learn how to not take their teen’s words and behavior personally, keep quiet when they are ready to judge and yell, and show them that they have their child’s back.
TAKING CARE OF YOURSELF (THE BEST GIFT YOU CAN GIVE YOUR CHILDREN)
We are living in a culture that has placed high value on putting our children first. The best parenting award goes to the parent who drops everything to bring a forgotten folder to school, assists in making the most beautiful school project, or attends every single baseball game or skating event. While putting our children first, we have lost our selves and our relationships with our partner, resulting in resentment and tension with our kids. In this presentation/workshop we will discuss how taking care of ourselves is actually the best gift we can give our children.
CONSCIOUS PARENTING
Conscious Parenting is truly accepting our children as unique individuals, and supporting them in becoming their most authentic selves. It is awareness of our standards and beliefs, societal pressures, and their impact on our ability to be present to what we truly believe is best for our family. Parenting consciously allows us to hold boundaries our children need while nurturing connection, the most essential aspect of the parent-child relationship.
In this workshop parents will learn to recognize their triggers, understand their child’s behavior, and gain tools to set boundaries from a calm and centered place. As a result, parents will foster greater connection with their child, thus allowing both parent and child to be their most authentic selves. Based on the work of Dr. Shefali Tsabary.
COLLABORATIVE PROBLEM SOLVING: FROM PUNISHMENT TO PROBLEM SOLVING
(From the Think:Kids program at Mass General Hospital)
Think:Kids Collaborative Problem Solving (CPS) is a model that focuses the parental lens on a collaborative strength-based, neurologically-grounded approach created by Massachusetts General Hospital’s Department of Psychiatry. CPS provides parents with concrete tools to better understand and parent their children and adolescents in the face of ordinary, day-to-day challenges – e.g., getting to school, screen time, homework, bedtime – to more serious challenges. It’s based on the understanding that kids lack the skill, not the will, to behave well – specifically skills related to problem solving, flexibility and frustration tolerance. Unlike traditional models of discipline, the CPS approach avoids the use of power, control and motivational procedures and focuses instead on building connected relationships and thinking skills.
To learn more, CLICK HERE.
Cindy has facilitated workshops at locations including:
- The Loved Child – Belmont, MA
- New England Center for Couples and Families – Arlington, MA
- Temple Beth Shalom – Needham, MA
- Newton Community Education – Newton, MA
- Strong Roots Counseling – Watertown, MA
- Gateways – Access to Jewish Education
- Wellington Management – Boston, MA
Contact Cindy!
You can contact Cindy at 617.869.3305.