The Mummy Coach

Getting out the house in the morning can be extremely stressful, especially when you dealing with people who have very little idea of time! With the kind permission of a client, I'd like to share some brilliant coaching she intuitively did with her children.

Mornings were extremely stressful and getting them to school and her to work on time consisted of her having to set the alarm for 5.30 and hit the floor running, however there was still a lot of shouting, tears and tantrums - and the kids were getting upset too.

One day, loaded with felt tip pens and paper she sat down with them and asked them to describe what mornings were like.  "Pooey"  'Shouty" "Sad" they responded and the words were written down in brown pen to reflect the ugliness of the experience.

'What would you like the mornings to be like?' she asked.

"Heartful"  "Starful"  'Kindful' - Creative, gentle words were written in different colours on another piece of paper.

"What do we need to do to have those kind of mornings?"

"Mummy needs to stop shouting"  "I need a timer to help me get dressed on time"  "Put my clothes out at bedtime" 'Stickers!"

The children totally owned the problem, came up with many creative solutions and family life got a whole lot better.  Mum wears her 'no-shouting' stickers with pride.

This is a classic coaching process we can use in all kinds of situations using 3 questions:

What is the situation/problem/difficulty now?

What would you like to have happen?

What needs to happen to create the change?

The final questions are:

How will you know when you've achieved your goal?

What will you do to celebrate?

I highly recommend the use of coloured pens and stickers!!!!