After we worked with Alan on the family coaching project I was so please with the impact it had on our family, I wanted to learn more about the work with the possibility of joining the team. I was then invited to assist on one of the programmes run by Develop Your Child.

I must say I was quite nervous and apprehensive as we started the first session which was extremely well attended with 23 parents including 3 fathers. The first session involved a lot of form filling as it was funded by the Local Authority and I felt unnerved by being out the front. I could also relate to their discomfort of being ‘exposed’. However as the students settled down everyone was feeling more relaxed and I got a buzz for them as they could see it was focused on what they could do to change the situation in their family.

It was great to see the parents realise that they weren’t the only one’s suffering the same sort of problems and you could see them grow as they participated in supporting their colleagues. Each week they filled out their success diaries and when they shared with the group what had changed there was a great bonding experience going on and I felt honoured to be a part of it.

It took a while for the parents to take on that this is more about them, how they feel about themselves and how their approach was so much more important than trying to take control of their children. When they realised it was more about the quality of the relationship they really started to make progress.

A typical situation was Elaine and Andy’s daughter who was not very interested in what they were doing at first but after a few weeks they came to the meeting with some very positive results. The family were talking more without there being arguments and friction, communication was much better.

It was great to see some dad’s as well as mums as their involvement is important too. Some of the mum’s did say if they did another course they would like to bring their partners along because of what they could get out of the course and take joint responsibility for bringing up their children.

What I really liked was being able to talk about my experiences and some of the things that had worked for us. Although being asked whilst being out the front never became easy, it did open the students up when I went round the tables coaching them.

Some of the chapters from the book “Listen to your children… and they will listen to you” were discussed although I felt more time could have been allocated to the Wheel of Life exercise as I felt some were confused with this. They really enjoyed the video resources and the dvd of ‘The Secret’. I felt some of them found this a bit hard to grasp as it was a different way of looking at themselves, their children and their families.

I particularly liked what one parent said “This course is giving me the courage to try a different approach. Be confident enough to trust my instincts and not feel guilty at making sure I feel good about myself. And it is helping me maintain and encourage openness between my children and myself”.

It’s a wonderful feeling to know I have helped parents see things differently and helped give them confidence to create more respectful family relationships. I think I’ve got the bug!