Building Connection
When we build conscious connection with our children, we are creating a foundation of strength and resilience from the inside out.
The framework for consciously connected coaching is based on research showing an authoritative parenting style is associated with the greatest amount of positive outcomes. It promotes secure attachment, increases resilience, and improves critical thinking, executive functioning, and academic achievement.
Building a strong inner foundation is difficult, life-changing, inner-self work. The plasticity of our brains and the incredible plasticity of a child’s brain, allows us to create a strong foundation of self-awareness, self-compassion, and self-control. A foundation that makes it possible to move through a difficult world with a sense of inner strength and safety.
The Consciously Connected Coaching Model
Safety boundaries: Make sure you and your child are safe
Self-regulation: Notice your own emotions and regulate your nervous system
Co-regulation: Look for the need underlying the behavior; offering connection, validation and safety
Coaching: When the child is regulated, you can problem solve together or you can offer strategies to meet the desired behavior
This process is not easy. Consciously connected coaching requires skills that we ourselves may have never been taught. We may have been taught to dismiss, suppress, or lash out with our uncomfortable feelings. When our own nervous system is triggered we automatically rely on our formative ways of handling emotions.
Allowing a safe space for those feelings that arise is a learning process that requires a lot of self-compassion and patience. This practice will allow you to hold yourself and your child with patience and grace as you nourish the relationship and build new skills.
