How Parent Coaching Can Positively Impact the Parenting Journey

Launched this year in collaboration with the ASA Charitable Foundation and VITAL WorkLife, ASA’s SafeHaven Program offers a variety of clinician well-being resources designed to address ASA members’ professional and personal challenges. One of those resources is the Parent Coaching program, offered through our partner VITAL WorkLife.

There is a myth that “Parent Education” must only be for people who “need” it. But those involved in the Parent Coaching program believe that all parents deserve support and guidance. “Coaching” seems to be a term most people can relate to, but what is “Parent Coaching”?

“Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better.”

–Maya Angelou

When faced with challenges, parents can often identify what they want but not always their (or their child’s) needs. Parent Coaching can normalize these uncomfortable and stressful parenting experiences.

Parent Coaching can:

• Meet a parent where they are on their journey and strategize with them to identify where they need help.
• Bring a sense of control over the situation(s) that brought them to Parent Coaching so they can begin to feel more hopeful and less bewildered, defeated, or stressed.
• Give parents a starting point to better consider solutions to improve the well-being of their family and their relationship with their child, and to make sure their child’s needs are met, too.
• Provide a collection of tools and strategies to serve as go-to resources for their long-term parenting journey.

Why try Parent Coaching?

Parent Coaching is not about telling how to “parent” as much as it is about supporting a parent on their parenting journey, which can reach far beyond just child-rearing. Parent Coaching supports all the ways that we support someone in their parenting experiences, whether it be solving a parenting problem, coping with the demands of parenting, or needing to improve the parenting balancing act.

Presently, mental health providers, especially for children and adolescents, have long wait lists. Sometimes Parent Coaching simply helps parents and children cope in the meantime by providing tools and resources to bridge a gap. But the skills learned through Parent Coaching are also lifelong tools on your parenting journey that bring value through each developmental stage.

Developmental stress

Parent Coaching reminds parents that development underlies much of the behavior that challenges us. Parent Coaching can help sort out what’s behind actual challenges so that problem-solving is possible. Helping parents, and children, to “name it” is often a first step toward clarity, which leads to empowerment and validation. Not all adults are innately versed in child development – and in the throes of parenting, it is an easily forgotten fact that children are undergoing constant change and learning.

The name game

Research tells us that being able to identify emotions enables us to gain a sense of control. Dr. Daniel Siegel, a master synthesizer of research findings from neuroscience and child development, coined the phrase, “name it to tame it,” which I often quote when working with parents (Mindsight: The New Science of Personal Transformation. 2010).

Parents who help a child to identify their emotions are nurturing emotional literacy. In an online article by Mitch Abblett titled “Tame Reactive Emotions by Naming Them,” by labeling an emotion, we learn that creating distance between ourselves and our experience allows us to choose how to respond to challenges (asamonitor.pub/3UC2GGh). This wisdom holds true for people of any age when we are attempting to take the reins back.

Psychologist David Rock states, “When you experience significant internal tension and anxiety, you can reduce stress by up to 50% by simply noticing and naming your state” (asamonitor.pub/3AoZS8B). Parent Coaching involves helping parents to “name it” for themselves, too.

The SafeHaven program is available to you and your family members. It offers confidential resources that include peer and parent coaching, counseling, virtual concierge, legal/financial resources, online work/life tools, a mobile app, and more.

Each subscription is $149 per clinician, with benefits access through November 2025. This introductory offer is made possible by the ASA Charitable Foundation for the first 500 enrollees. Thereafter, pricing will be charged at $333 per clinician. Explore program details at asahq.org/safehaven.