Through my life coach training I realised that a platform of self-esteem is the foundation of any personal development. I also became aware how my 7-year-old daughter, (at the time) was beautifully balanced, confident and popular, was doing well at school and I wanted all children to have her attributes and abilities.

 

That was the start - working with children on their self-esteem, emotional literacy and goal setting. The pilot was in my daughters school where I was asked to help 8, eight year olds, who were considered ‘to be under achieving’, but we couldn’t say that. After the course, results showed significant improvements in their reading and math’s SAT’s compared to the year group as a whole.

 

The Head was delighted with the results although he was concerned that it was just lucky, so we did it again with the same level of results.

 

This success encouraged me to write a similar programme for teenagers and in this case I included a ‘buddy’ who they could work with in challenging and supporting each other. The buddy was established through the NLP process of learning modalities – auditory, kinesthetic or visual. These relationships were very successful as some teens that would not normally mix together formed new friendships that carried over into the streets.

 

I like a challenge and took the approach into inner city areas and soon discovered, as a generalisation, any child with a problem had a parent with a bigger problem. My focus therefore moved to supporting parents and I did some specific parent coach training in the US. Later I became a parenting tutor for my local Adult Education establishment.

 

I’ve written 9 programmes for children, young people, parents and combinations of these groups in addition to some professionals including teachers.

 

My first book is “Listen to your children… and they will listen to you” which is a self-help life coaching programme to empower parents to create self-esteem in their children (and themselves) and break through the communication barrier.

 

I wanted to change the family dynamic when the parents and young people aren’t talking. I wrote a programme to work with the whole family both as a group and independently. An article covering this approach was published in the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy, CCYP Journal.

 

This led me to form a charity ‘Every Family Matters’ to take our work out into the community. We have been able to attract 2 grants from Awards for All (part of the Big Lottery Fund) to implement and develop this Family Coaching approach.

 

During my research into children’s behaviour I became aware of a label ‘Indigo children’, these children are more sensitive emotionally, physically and psychically. I imagined these parents would have more challenges than the ‘average’ parent. I also found similar attributes and behaviours exhibited by children with a label – ‘autistic’, ‘ADD/ADHD’, ‘gifted’, ‘SEN’, ‘difficult behaviour’ and ‘teenager’.

 

From that point on I wanted to remove labels altogether, I think it detracts from the essence and magnificence of a child, in fact everyone. We have coined the phrase ‘energetic connection’ because we have found children are more sensitive these days and are affected by the emotions in a room and are able to sense authenticity and congruence.

 

Depending on their age and emotional development will depend on how they deal with a situation. If they sense someone is trying to manipulate or control them they will press one of their hot button. The penny drops for parents when you tell them their children can sense the mood they are in before they enter the room, they know it but haven’t explored it until now!

 

Our latest product is a DVD produced to encourage parents and teachers to see young people in a different light. “Kids are really different these days” explores how and why young people are different and the impact on our parenting, teaching and our future.

 

Develop Your Child now offers programmes and training for children, young people, parents, carers and the professionals working with these groups to create personal empowerment. A network of Authorised Coaches has been launched with appointment of coaches in the UK, United States, Sweden, New Zealand and Singapore. There are two completed training programmes, which have been accredited by The National Open College Network.

 

Our next step is to move our approach into education, business and out into the community - our mission is to create and ethos of empowerment around young people.

 

Perhaps the most exciting development is the Family Coaching Café where we are introducing our approach into companies with an exciting ‘stress busting for working parents’ programme. By empowering parents we are reducing stress throughout their lives with lots of benefits within the family and for the company savings in time, money and increased performance and profitability.

 

Who knows where the Family Coaching Café will pop up next!!