Parent Coaching Story: From “Save me!” to “See ya!”

_{To protect the privacy of the families we support, names and identifying details in this story have been changed.}

Parent coaching can help families better understand their child’s behaviour and develop practical strategies that work in everyday life. Sometimes, the biggest change isn’t learning one particular strategy. It’s learning how to understand why a behaviour is happening and feeling confident deciding what to do next.

In this Parent Coaching Story, I share how working collaboratively with one mother helped her move from feeling unsure about what to do to feeling confident supporting her daughter independently.

Meeting Sarah and Her Mum

When I first met Sarah’s mother, she presented me with concerns about Sarah’s ability to have back-and-forth conversations, follow directions to clean up and complete daily grooming tasks, make requests using clear phrases, and transition away from preferred activities. Sarah’s mother already had a variety of strategies in place in the home setting to support behaviours, including the use of visuals, routines, and opportunities for breaks throughout the day. She wanted to learn about additional strategies she could use to support behaviour, and also to learn more about Autism, since most of her knowledge came from the internet.

After observing Sarah in the home and clinic setting, reviewing her skill and behaviour assessments, and speaking with Sarah’s mother, my recommendation for Sarah was to have parent coaching sessions once every 3 weeks. The goals we identified included completing lessons and their associated activities about Autism, understanding behaviour, preventative strategies, reactive strategies, teaching replacement behaviours, and working together to identify the strategies and interventions she could implement at home.

Understanding Sarah’s Autism 

When reviewing the lessons about Autism, Sarah’s mum had many “oh, that makes so much sense!” and “I was wondering what that was about” moments. Despite having access to the diagnostic criteria through a Google search, being able to talk with me about how the criteria fit with her daughter seemed to provide a lot of clarity and, surprisingly, a lot of laughter. We completed the associated activity which provided the opportunity for her to rank the level of impact she perceived each of the symptoms had on Sarah’s life, and on Sarah’s family. For Sarah’s mother this activity changed her attitude from a stressed out “I don’t know what to do” to a confident “Let’s work on this.” I also shared some videos with her of girls and women speaking about their own experiences having Autism, so she could hear about it from the perspective of an autistic person, in order to be more aware of what her daughter might be thinking and feeling but was not yet able to express. 

Understanding Why Behaviour Happens 

When we met for the next session, Sarah’s mother was so excited to share how she had started to use the information she had learned about Autism, and particularly Sarah’s individual flavour of autism, to better inform how she interacted with her daughter. She had a million questions about “Is this because of this symptom?” and if her ideas about things she could change in her parenting approach made sense or would be effective to support Sarah’s behaviours.

To me, it seemed like the perfect time to review the lessons on understanding behaviours. We spent the next session reviewing how to identify antecedents (what happened before the behaviour-possible triggers), how to describe behaviour, and how to identify consequences (what happened after the behaviour – possibly what makes the behaviour more likely to occur again). Sarah’s mother was able to use this method to identify the most common conditions under which Sarah’s challenging behaviours occurred: Nonpreferred task demands and denied/delayed access. This information gave us the reason why Sarah’s challenging behaviours occurred – to escape or avoid nonpreferred tasks, and to access desired items and activities. Knowing this, we were able to work together to collaborate on a list of strategies that worked for Sarah’s mother to implement at home, in addition to the strategies she had already been using.

These included:

• Potty breaks before preferred activities: Potty breaks before engaging in highly preferred activities, such as coloring or watching TV, to prevent bathroom accidents.
• Visuals for Routines: A visual for the steps of the morning and nighttime routines was created, allowing for flexibility and choice in deciding which order to do the tasks
• Teaching waiting: Providing opportunities to teach Sarah to wait for shorter periods of time, to minimize challenging behaviours that occurred when she was told to wait for longer periods of time that were outside of Sarah’s mother’s control. 
• Rephrasing “no” for desired items/activities: Using language to show what is available when saying no to something that is not available, and saying when something will be available that is not available now.
• Pompom jar reinforcement system established: A reinforcement system utilizing both individual and group pompom jars is implemented to track positive behaviours using a self-management checklist.
  • Self-management Checklist: The success criteria for the daily checklist are established, where achieving 6 out of 6 ‘Yeses’ earns 3 pompoms.
    • Brushing teeth, cleaning up when instructed, going potty in the toilet, speaking kindly, and completing chores.
    • Additional pompoms can be provided for observed positive behaviours throughout the day
      • First-time listening
      • Being kind to family members
      • Completing tasks before being asked
• Car behaviour checklist developed: A separate car behaviour checklist was developed to address difficulty during outings, including keeping hands to oneself, using an inside voice, and wearing a seat belt for the entire trip. Reinforcers could include pompoms at home or a special treat at the store.
• Teaching and modeling desired language: Showing how desired requests and responses, such as:
  • “Can I have a muffin” to replace “Give me a muffin”
  • “No, thank you” 
  • “Can I have 5 more minutes?”
  • “I need some space” to replace “Go away!”
• Verbal Reminders for upcoming transitions: Giving warnings ahead of time for when current activities will end – 10 minutes, 5 minutes, 2 minutes.
• Changing language for demands: Saying “help me clean up the puzzle” instead of “Clean up the living room” 
• Incorporating interests/play into nonpreferred tasks: Playing music during clean-up time, turning cleaning up into a game

What Changed After Six Months of Parent Coaching? 

After 10 parent coaching sessions over six months, Sarah’s mum reported that challenging behaviours in the home were rarely occurring, and if they did occur Sarah was able to recover quickly. Sarah was cooperating more with nonpreferred tasks, and had started to initiate nonpreferred tasks by looking at her routine visual without being directed by her mother. Sarah’s mother reported feeling confident that she was now able to support Sarah’s behaviours and teach her new skills, and that she didn’t need my help anymore!

The Goal of Parent Coaching: Not Needing Your Coach Forever 

My goal as a behaviour support coach is to help parents get to the point where they are able to independently support their children without feeling overwhelmed or like they don’t know what to do and need outside help. It’s bittersweet to say goodbye to families I have supported, but I am always happy to be a part of their journey.

Could Parent Coaching Help Your Family?

Looking for practical support with your child’s behaviour, communication, or everyday routines? To learn more about how parent coaching can help your family, reach out at acclaimbh.co.uk