More About Amy & FAQ's
Meet your Coach...
Amy Morrison
Amy’s deep insight, and decades of experience working with children and families, shines through in her coaching work. She delivers thoughtfully curated suggestions, intended to bring positive shifts to a family’s daily life. While she loves to incorporate playfulness into many of her sessions, she takes child development seriously; so much so that she earned a Master’s Degree from an esteemed private school, specifically in this field of study. Having this developmental foundation allows her to help clients in setting boundaries, shifting expectations, and seeing through certain behaviors.
Amy has been advocating for children her entire career. Before becoming a parent coach, she was a child life specialist, an administrator for a Head Start/Early Head Start agency, and an educator. In her words, “Coaching allows me to be a cheerleader for an entire family, rather than a single individual.”
Amy is an internationally certified parent coach who welcomes LGBTQIA+ families, parents with children of toddler age to teen age, families created through unconventional routes (adoption, foster system, and surrogacy), and parents who don’t know where to start but know they want a better relationship than what they currently have with their children.
FAQ's
What is the difference between therapy and coaching?
Coaching and therapy both work to create lasting change for our clients, however the approaches do differ. One analogy I like is comparing therapy to a whole house demolition and coaching to partial home renovation. In coaching, we upgrade one room at time, while keeping the structural elements in place. I should also note that coaches do not diagnose mental health concerns or mental illness. For some people, parent coaching is something they add in addition to therapy. For others, it's the step before therapeutic services.
Who needs a parenting coach?
Quite literally, anyone and everyone can benefit from working with a parent coach. People who work with children...people who have parents...people who have jobs...Since the core of this work is connection and relationship focused, there is really no limit to who might be helped! My speciality is the parent-child relationship because this is our very first bond and establishes so much that we bring forward into other partnerships.
How does this work? Do you work with the child or the whole family?
Because of my unique and extensive background in child development, I may request/honor a request to work with a family or a child. This would be an unusual circumstance, however. Parent Coaching work is typically "parent-centric", meaning that the work is primarily centered on the parent's journey, and through this awakening and empowerment, the parent-child relationship transforms and there is no need to work with additional family memebers.
"Peaceful" or "gentle" parenting seems very passive. Don't kids need to understand rules? I was raised in a house where you did as you were told and turned out just fine.
I love this question! There's too much to unpack in a simple answer, but we do explore this in detail during my Parenting Course. In short, yes! Children (People in general, actually) DO need boundaries and consequences. They help us navigate the perimeters of our relationship/job. There is a difference between punishments and consequences, however. We've used these terms synonymously and it has lead to a complicated understanding in parenting. I believe children and adults learn best through teaching of skills, not by delivering punitive tasks. I don't prescribe to one uniform approach for every parent I work with. I encourage rule-based parents to employ logical and natural consequences, while empowering passive parents to step-up, establish boundaries, and follow through with consequences. I listen and we make a plan based on what is weighing you down. There is no one-size fits all in my methodology.
