Helping YOU build YOUR tool-box for supporting your child to build their skills at home. 

Did you know that the one hour a week, fortnight or month your child spends with their Occupational Therapist is only one hour out of: 168 hours in one week, 336 hours in a fortnight and 720 hours in a 30 day month? 

We know many of the children we see for OT also access other therapies such as Speech Therapy, Psychology and Physiotherapy. 

When your child is not in their therapy session(s), they are spending their time with you at home and in the community, and attending childcare, Kinder, school and other formalised education and other activities.                        

There is a lot of time that YOU are spending with your child, and we know that parenting children can be very challenging despite it being our most important life role that we have. 

This is where Parent-Coaching (or another term used is Child-Focused Parent Therapy) can be a useful add-on to helping you build YOUR  knowledge, skills and capacity to continue to support your child in their skill-building journey. 

In fact, Parent-Coaching is a therapeutic approach that can be done with any key guardian that spends their time engaging in caring for your child, where you, the parent may not be available.  

Parent-Coaching – Therapist sessions may include the following objectives: 

• Working together to identify your child’s strengths and area(s) of concern. 
• Enable a safe space to reflect upon your family system and how your child’s care and support needs may be best supported. 
• Support you as the parent/guardian with education around your child’s needs and capacities, both currently and future, and assisting with goal setting within these parameters. 
• Provide an opportunity for the therapist to support you, the parent/guardian to build your skills, confidence, and capacity to implement new skills and strategies with your child. 
• Support your family to create a supportive environment through adaptations and modifications that can compensate for where skill development may not be a suitable goal. 
• Allow you, the parent/guardian, an opportunity to speak without your child present which can provide a time for you to express any of your concerns and your own emotions surrounding your child. 

Sometimes, you might be offered Parent-Coaching (or Child-Focused Parent Therapy) as the primary therapeutic process or in combination with the child being present in therapeutic sessions (individually or parent-child). Your Occupational Therapist will be able to speak with you about why they are offering Parent-Coaching sessions, however, below are some possible reasons why you and your family might be offered Parent-Coaching as part of your child’s therapeutic journey: 

• Your child’s needs indicate that upskilling you, as their parent/guardian, is a more effective way of supporting your child’s capacity to perform skills at home and in the community. This is because developing new skills requires practice with those close to the child daily versus practicing once during a fortnightly therapy session. 
• Your child’s age and stage of development may indicate that parent/guardian-coaching is more valuable that therapist-child sessions. Young children’s ability for attention, focus and engagement in activities can be less effective than parent-coaching sessions. 
• Therapist and child availability and location can also influence the type of therapy that can be offered. For example, some families may live too far from available face to face services, or local waitlists for face-to-face services may be very long. 
• Parent/Guardian-Coaching therapy via Telehealth is an effective option in providing child focused therapy where face-to-face sessions are not available. 

Although Parent/Guardian-Coaching is more commonly offered in the younger child therapy space, it can be a useful addition to the therapeutic journey of adolescents, young adults and adults. Should there be an indication that upskilling the parent/carer/guardian(s) of the adolescent/young adult/adult be essential in helping the individual build their functional capacity, Parent/Guardian- Coaching may be offered. 

If you wish to learn more or consider this to be an option that may work well for your family, you should speak with your child’s Occupational Therapist or email us at admin@ourtherapies.com.au