AKA Parenting Programme’s
Family Life Coaching
What skills do you wish your parents had taught you?
Michelle Alexander is the founder and managing director of AKA Life Coaching, family support and Early intervention service for women. Michelle is a trained facilitator of the following International parenting programmes, Mellow, Cygnet, the power to change, SFSC and Solihull. As you will see below many of the parenting programmes are 7-14 weeks which may be impossible for most working parents. AKA Life Coaching provides individual family / Parental life coaching workshops and Coaching sessions. (For more information click the links below and or contact us on 07841 864315).
Mellow Parenting
Mellow Mums is an attachment and relationship based group intervention for mums who have babies and young children. Mixtures of reflective and practical techniques are used to allow parents to address their personal challenges and the challenges they face with their children. A typical Mellow Mum’s group will run for 14 weeks, one day a week. A typical group might run between 10am and 2:30pm. Children participate in a children’s group while the parents meet together.
The personal group allows parents to discuss and reflect how their on experiences of being parented is affecting their relationships with their children now. Over snack/activity time the parents and children eat together and participate in a joint activity. This allows the parent and child to share in fun activities which build and strengthen their relationship. Lunchtime activities use cheap or free materials to allow mums to try at home later.
Solihull Approach
The ‘Understanding your child’s behaviour’ group for all parents, mothers and fathers, of children aged 6 months to 19 years. 10 sessions of 2 hours each. Focusses on relationships. Behaviour management is thought of within the context of the relationship. Photocopiable handouts for parents. Parents and facilitators enjoy the group.
Session 1: Introduction to the Solihull Approach Parenting Group
Session 2: How are you and your child feeling?
Session 3: Tuning into your child’s developmental needs
Session 4: Responding to your child’s feelings
Session 5: Different styles of parenting
Session 6: Parent-child partnership – having fun together
Session 7: The rhythm of interaction and sleep
Session 8: Self-regulation and anger
Session 9: Communication and attunement – how to recover when things go wrong
Session 10: Celebration!
The Solihull Approach parenting group supports the recommended guidelines of the NICE guidelines for CG158: Antisocial behaviour and conduct disorders in children and young people: recognition and management. The group has a relationship based approach, aiming to develop a framework for thinking as a lifelong skill about parent/child relationships, promoting communication, exploring feelings and effective behaviour management.
Building Relationships for Stronger Families
About the programme
The ‘Building Relationships for Stronger Families’ programme has been designed to help parents that feel that stress and conflict in relationship that is affecting relationships and family.
The programme offers parents support appropriate to circumstance, in order to address conflict within relationships, along with strengthening parenting skills to help bring up children.
One to one or group sessions encouraging discussion around the modern struggles that parents and couples face.
During the programme, you will work on your relationship, whether you are together or separate, and find ways to manage stresses and disagreements, exploring patterns of behaviour and tools and techniques to improve your parenting skills and help your family succeed.
Cygnet Parenting
A parenting support programme for parents and carers of children and young people aged 5-18 with an autistic spectrum condition.
Parents of children on the autistic spectrum face the usual positive and difficult challenges of parenting and quite a few more. Attending Cygnet gives parents and carers an opportunity to develop their understanding of autism and look at practical solutions to support their child.
It also provides the opportunity to meet other people in a similar position and hear about their experiences in an informal but supportive atmosphere.
SFSC Programme
Strengthening Families, Strengthening Communities is an inclusive evidence-based parenting programme, designed to promote protective factors which are associated with good parenting and better outcomes for children.
SFSC has enjoyed success with parents from a number of backgrounds, including black and minority ethnic parents, teenaged parents, parents with learning disabilities and parents from marginalised communities, including those with experience of drugs, alcohol or violence.
In particular, SFSC helps parents to:
Gain a better understanding of child development
Use positive discipline techniques
Promote children’s social skills and self-discipline
Achieve positive change in family relationships
Explore and develop strategies to deal with factors that risk poor outcomes for children, such as harsh and/or inconsistent discipline
The power to change domestic violence
The Power to Change is run specifically for women who are survivors of domestic abuse, and is based on the idea that women working together in a safe, friendly and supportive environment can change their life for the better. The programme is a psycho-educational and support group run in weekly 2 hour sessions over a period of 10-12 weeks.
There are various prevention programmes that work to keep young people away from crime. They are run within local communities, and can involve parents and families.
Young people are placed on these programmes if:
they have been in trouble with the police
they’re ‘at risk’ of committing a crime
they’re involved in anti-social behaviour
Attending one of these programmes is voluntary. The young person and their parents or carers have to be happy with everything before it starts.
Parental Conflict and the impact on children
The book you wish your parents had read (and your children will be glad that you did )
It is one of the cliches of parenthood that the behaviour which comes most easily (a reproving tone of voice, say, or an attitude to your child’s tears) reflects what your parents did with you. It takes a while to realise that what feels like instinct is often an inheritance, that just because something comes “naturally” it is not necessarily constructive. It may get in the way, first, of the relationship between parent and child, and then, because this relationship provides the foundation for all future relationships, of how the child will get on in the world.