If you’re looking for a coach for your child, then it is likely you will turn to the search engines for help.
However, searching for youth coaches online turns over millions of results.
So, how do you know which to choose?
Life coaching for children can be an incredibly effective and powerful tool.
However, the coaching industry is currently an unregulated marketplace.
This means that anyone can set themselves up as a coach without any formal training or accreditation.
When you’re looking to help your child, you want to make sure that your child will receive safe, trusted and qualified support.
What Is Life Coaching For Children?
Coaching is a creative and supportive process that explores ideas, beliefs, experiences, and behaviours.
A coach can work as the external eyes and ears for a person, helping and supporting them to uncover any limiting beliefs as well as any damaging thoughts or behaviour patterns.
Through careful practice, a youth coach can help a child or young adult to discover their potential.
The practice works to embrace and harness their uniqueness and equip them with the tools they need to explore and break down any issues that could be holding them back.
A youth coach doesn’t build new skills in the client but helps the young person discover the skills, abilities, and potential that they already possess.
With this, the young person is able to look at situations with fresh or different perspectives.
Ultimately, a youth coach can help to empower young people to find healthy solutions that are right for the individual so they can fulfil their potential and live their best life.
How Does Life Coaching For Children Work?
Life coaching for children requires a supportive, trusting environment where the child feels comfortable opening up and sharing what’s going on for them.
A life coach will facilitate a welcoming space and use open questions, so a child can share any anxieties and concerns and explain what they feel is holding them back.
During a life coaching session, a child should feel able to talk about emotional experiences.
They may want to discuss things that are making them unhappy as well as things they find enjoyment, enthusiasm, and energy in.
The focus for the coaching is to be forward-focused, looking at how the child wants their life to be different, whether personally or academically, and how they can work towards that goal.
Throughout coaching sessions, the child has an opportunity to think bigger about their dreams, goals and strengths.
A coach can help a child or young adult to tap into their excitement and energy so that they be on track to achieve their ambitions.
In some cases, this may be reflecting on a change in actions.
Coaching may be working on the limiting beliefs where they don’t feel like they’re good enough.
Alternatively, it could look at how the young person can take tiny steps to align their behaviour to their goals.
Life coaching for children opportunities are endless, from changing the trajectory of your child’s behaviour to helping them become more focused and aligned with their goals and ambitions.
Another significant benefit of coaching is changing how someone feels about themself.
The child or teen can understand that what they want to achieve can be possible and begin to develop that growth mindset.
How To Choose The Right Life Coach For Your Child
For your child to open up and share their greatest fears and anxieties, you want to ensure you have the right coach.
The life coaching for children process can be complex, and for your child, you want it to be as sensitive and supportive as possible.
At Flourished Minds, we have years of experience specialising in youth coaching. Our bespoke approach has honed in on the techniques that are effective and deliver our high success rates.
We pride ourselves on the skills and method of working with young people that helps them to make the improvements they want to see in their lives.
Through our considered approach, we can help children and teens make what they think is impossible to become a reality.
When finding a youth coach for your child, you want to make sure that the rapport is there and that the coach will take the right approach for their needs.
With this in mind, here are some excellent questions to ask when looking for a youth coach.
3 Questions To Ask Any Life Coach For Children
Not sure which youth coach to choose? The best way to find the right fit for your child is to talk to the coach and get a sense of their coaching values and approach.
These three questions can really help you to better understand the coach and whether their approach will suit your child.
1. What Are Your Goals, Purpose And Values?
At Flourished Minds, our goal is simple. We want to help every child to discover their own unique gifts, abilities and reasons for being.
We do this through our specialised coaching that draws upon lived experience, skills and expertise as well as care and compassion.
When asking this question, the answer you receive will be a good indication of whether the coach will be the right fit.
Youth coaching is a very specialist field that does require experience, passion and perseverance.
Coaching young people can be challenging, but if the coach talks about their purpose and goal with passion, enthusiasm, and positive energy, this will demonstrate their commitment as a coach.
The values of a coach can also help to show what drives them. This can be really crucial in showing their commitment to wanting to help your child.
Values such as kindness, compassion, open-mindedness and acceptance are all essential values for a youth coach.
A life coach should also be really clear on their reasons for working with young people and their goal of supporting young people.
When listening to the answer, it can help to reflect on your own impression.
Do they give you a good feeling?
2. What’s Your Approach?
Every coach will have their own technique and style.
This is not a bad thing, as there is no universal coaching strategy, and different clients will prefer different coaching styles.
However, there are some fundamentals that are important to establish.
For example, the process of building trust, support and positive relationships is essential.
Without this, it becomes impossible to facilitate healthy, productive coaching conversations.
The relationship built between a coach and the client is one of the most critical aspects.
Your child’s coach should be able to talk about how they facilitate this.
It is also important to note that coaching should be intuitive and led by the individual child.
With this in mind, if the coach talks about rigid programmes, must-complete workbooks or that a set timeframe is all a child needs, then these can be warning signs that the coach is focused too much on the process rather than adapting to suit the child’s needs.
A good coach will be client-led, and while they may have a preferred approach, they will be able to adapt different tools, skills and techniques accordingly to suit each child.
A good coach will do what they can to focus on what is best for the child, rather than their ‘go-to’ coaching tool.
3. What’s Your Success Rate?
Measuring success in the coaching field is difficult because success looks different for every child.
However, a good coach will be able to share stories of success and their track record of results.
While life coaching qualifications are important to check, especially as the industry is under-regulated, it is also important to check the coach’s effectiveness.
Asking to see testimonials will also help you to gauge a coach’s performance. In some cases, you may be able to speak to parents or teachers who have worked with the coach for further confirmation.
At Flourished Minds, all of our coaches are accredited, highly trained and experienced.
However, it is the founder, Karen Cruise, who makes the difference with her specialist skills, experience and passion for youth coaching that really creates the success rate that Flourished Minds is known for.
How Will You Know That You’ve Found The Right Life Coach For Your Child?
Usually, after a discovery call with a coach, you’ll get a gut feeling about whether they are the right coach for your client.
The right coach will be interested, empathetic and keen to help your child. This shows their commitment to wanting to achieve the best outcome for your child.
They will take the time to discuss the situation with you and provide detailed answers to any questions that you may have.
Ultimately, a good youth coach will want to support both the child and parents throughout the process, so if you find that you and your child connect well with a coach, this is a positive sign of an effective coaching relationship.
Life Coaching For Children By Flourished Minds
If you’re looking for a youth coach for your child, then Flourished Minds is here to help.
Our goal will always be to support the child to live their best life and reach their full potential.
If you’d like more information as to what we do and how we can help, please don’t hesitate to get in touch for a free consultation.
