Parents as Coach?
arun on Mar 27 2008 at 8:58 am | Filed under: education, empowerment & trust, parenting, unschooling, work from home | Click here to go HOME | or find out about SUBSCRIBING TO THE PIT |
Anne & I have recently been reading and implementing coaching techniques for our home business to great effect. We have been using a coaching approach called the GROW model popularised by John Whitmore in his book Coaching for Performance. Although I feel uncomfortable with describing parenting as coaching, I was struck by how this approach is so aligned with some aspects of unschooling.
The book quotes a study by IBM which looked at the levels of recall for people being told/ shown/ having experienced something (click for bigger view as it speaks for itself). Mind you since I am just telling you this, in three months time most of you wont remember so I may as well have made up those figures!
With the importance of direct experience and ownership over solutions as a foundation Whitmore explains,
Coaching is unlocking a person’s potential to maximize their own performance. It is helping them to learn rather than teaching them. […] To use coaching successfully we have to adopt a more optimistic view than usual of the dormant capability of people, all people.
And as that insightful philosopher Horton the Elephant said:
People are people, no matter how small!
… so Im guessing these principles apply to children also.
GROW coaching then is not about finding the ‘right’ answer but aims to foster self belief, awareness and responsibility in the coachee.
The coach is not a problem solver, a teacher, an adviser, an instructor or even an expert; he or she is a sounding board, a facilitator, a counselor, an awareness raiser.
That last quote is from Whitmore by the way… not Horton.
The book has insightful discussion on asking effective questions (that are open, avoid judgement and increase the requirement for observation and awareness). A simple sporting example is avoiding the common, “are you watching the ball?” and using something like, “which way is the ball spinning when it comes over the net?”
There is also interesting notes on listening, he does not use the term ‘mindful’ but Whitmore basically is describing the need for self awareness and detachment in the process to avoid projecting your stuff on others and to simply understand them.
Whitmore comments:
Perhaps the hardest thing a coach has to do is learn how to shut up
As I said we read this to apply in a business context and I don’t think its an exact fit in the parenting world. For a start the idea of goals are often quite fluid, especially for those of us with younger children.
Yesterday M had a stated goal of wanting to build a helicopter out of wood. Rather than me going into coaching mode I watched her dive right into sawing a piece of wood. Her goal suddenly changed as she realised that she had never actually sawn a piece of wood right through. The helicopter idea was soon forgotten after she reached this new goal.
Perhaps other more coachable goals will arise as our children get older… those of you with older kids might like to comment? Right now it is really more about play, exploration and joy… having said that I hope these goals persist throughout their entire life 
Another key difference is the power of parents to model. To live our values rather than tell our values. And its true that one of the most challenging things for me to do is “learn how to shut up” and trust in the process more.
So while I still dont see myself as ‘my children’s coach’… reading this book has reminded me to focus on trust and giving my children support which is based on confidence and space.
That was today anyway. Now to work out how Im going to stay on track tomorrow 
One of the most important aspects of learning I have discovered over the years is that what we learn is rarely what we set out to learn. Your daughter’s helicopter project is a perfect example of this and it doesn’t matter what age a person is, this happens all the time to everyone.
We do something because we want to or have to, and we usually end up learning or honing skills or knowledge related to the task. When we don’t complete the task - eg making the helicopter, it is easy to be conned into thinking we’re failing or lazy or whatever else people want to call it. But what has actually happened is that somewhere, deep in our brains and souls, we reached a point of satisfaction - the drive to learn is satiated and thus we no longer feel motivated - say to build a helicopter. In a young child’s mind the task of sawing is so immense the helicopter is quickly forgotten, as it should be, but in an older child’s mind, it might be remembered and held onto as frustration rather than focusing on the joy of learning all about sawing, or the qualities of wood, or feeling confident with tools, or whatever. In an adult’s mind we get lost in judging ourselves, the habit of not noticing what we are truly learning completely lost in the dim mists of time…
My children have taught me that no matter what we are doing we are learning something really important to each of us. Sometimes it takes a while to realise what the lesson actually was. Sometimes it doesn’t seem related to the task. I find that the Jung/Campbell world of symbols and myths often help me uncover the real purpose of most of my learning. The more I look and try to notice the easier it is to see the many levels on which I am learning in each moment of life.
It’s very cool and very exciting. The best game ever!
cheers
Beverley
http://homeschoolaustralia.com
http://alwayslearningbooks.com.au
Typing with a bfing toddler on me, so excuse the haphazard thought process in advance!
When I was learning surgery, we had the maxim of “Watch one, Done, Teach one” driven into us. The focus was not on the actual number here, but rather the idea that you can only learn so much by watching and even again only so much by doing. *Teaching* is where the true learning occurs, which is why we find parenting such an amazing journey - all of the things we have just ‘done’ in our lives are suddenly laid bare, naked and shivering as we dissect out the focus points, the meaning, the idea of the journey.
As Beverley writes above, when we ‘teach one’, it’s often found that it’s not the activity but the engagement that is what we were seeking.
Plus I see my 2.5yr DD ‘teaching’ all the time - me, her doll, other children. This is her own way of crystallising experience and priorities from experience.
Cheers, Cass
oops, that should be watch one, DO one, teach one above.
Expanding our view of parenting to include aspects of coaching — which does involve cultivating (we parents are also gardeners!) a child’s decision-making skills, providing opportunities for him to lead, and listening respectfully — can help parents to detach and parent more effectively. The quotes that you chose are encouraging, particularly the one about unlocking potential, which is what we all want to do for our children. I will include your post in the next issue of Parenting News You Can Use, a free weekly E-Zine for parents and teachers. Visit www.INCAF.com or www.WholeHeartedParenting.com for more and to subscribe.
While I agree with your description of coaching, here in the U.S. we tend to think of, and favor, a different sort of coaching. For instance, there’s Vince Lombardi, yelling and screaming at players, while maintaining a mission statement of “Winning isn’t everything; it’s the only thing.”
There’s coaching and then there’s coaching. Choose wisely.
It’s funny you say this Arun, because as I’ve been reading this book in preparation for the coming course, I have been finding Whitmore’s approach is very much in line with the way I like to approach parenting. And really describes a parent’s role when it comes to natural learning I feel.
I love how a coach in Whitmore’s description is an awareness builder, rather than a holder of the knowledge. I’ve really been enjoying the book, thanks!