Kids Life Coaching is a relatively new field in the greater scheme of things. When I first started coaching children in 2003, it was unheard of and I was the first Kids Life Coach to launch my own practice. At the time, I had nobody to learn from, nobody to help me and nobody to point me in the right direction. Simply because coaching was reserved for adults and nobody was doing it for children (yet) until I identified the gap and took action. 

Just like you....I saw a need and you no doubt have also seen a need for kids life coaching in your community. It always surprises me as to even after two decades of coaching this field is still growing. In fact, since the pandemic I have seen a growth spurt with the field gaining amazing traction. 

Yet sadly...with every good intention, I see passionate children's change makers launch their own coaching practice the same way I did over two decades ago and even there there is so much help they choose to do it alone!

THEY GUESS THEIR...

Recently, I have noticed that a lot of people feel impatient. They want to help children. They want to do their best for children. They want to learn how to coach children BUT they want to do it quickly! 

In the past (I have been training people since 2009), this wasn't the case. People were prepared to put in the effort and learn slowly and incrementally how to coach children. I just feel that the media is pushing their agenda of declining mental wellbeing in children and people (perhaps you?) are feeling desperate to be part of the solution and help.This means they are googling online to find quick fixes....

I am here to tell you that if you want to help and do be part of the solution there is only one way to do it.

PROPERLY!

Anybody who knows me as the founder of Kids Life Studio® Global and who has done our Kids Life Coach Certification training knows this about me....

I don't do short cuts.

I don't believe in short cuts.

I don't do a half job.

When it comes to coaching...

When I first started coaching children in 2003, I was doing it part-time as a primary school teacher and school counsellor. I would consider myself pretty creative and I absolutely loved finding, curating and making new resources for the children in my classroom and that I was coaching in my spare time. 

I remember having this big old steel filing cabinet!! Yes, you know the type!! The old industrial office one before cloud storage was a thing. I had all these neatly filed away alphabetical folders with resources from A to Z! If I found a magazine article or a book or a resource or poster or a worksheet, I would print it out and file it. 

Oh and did I mention that I didn't have access to google and AI like we do now! ALSOOOOOOOOO....how did I do it WITHOUT ANY social. media!

Boy oh boy! How times have changed! Now we have everything at our fingertips. You can google away and there are millions of resources available to you! What I have found though is that with this choice...

I'm just going to spill the beans here...perhaps I am one of the few...but so far I have not as yet made use of Chat GPT to write my blogs, curate articles or executive administration tasks. 

Am I being foolish?

Maybe?

Yet, I can't help but circle back to our highest value at Kids Life Studio® and that is to nurture caring, kind, supportive relationships with children. If we are to walk with integrity in our work as Kids Life Coaches, there may be some sense in taking short cuts when it comes to admin but when it comes to children, I can't think of anything worse.

Children are showing an upswing in mental health problems not because of something they have done...but because of what the world is doing to them collectively. The pressures have exponentially increased and alongside this, quality of life has deteriorated with less meaningful face to face relationships and more online interaction. Less family time and more go go go....Everything accessed at the click of a button...

Today is supposed to be BLUE Monday in England where I live! A day of the year that is supposed to be the most depressing. The concept is believed to have first been published in 2005 in a press release from Sky Travel, who made claims that by "a novel calculation they determined it as the most depressing day of the year." Due to this, the first-ever Blue Monday was born on January 24, 2005. And the "legacy" (a negative one...) lingers on. 

To be fair, I can see how today would be a hard day for many adults. It is halfway into the first month of the new year and perhaps "new years resolutions" have already disappeared. Some of you may still be hammering away at eating healthy, exercising, not drinking alcohol (dry January it is now called...) sleeping better, doing hobbies, being mindful...and...and...and...

The pressure in our world "to do" is overwhelming us and our natural inherent need to "just be" is being overtaken. With so many external influences such as the media...

As we sail into the new year of 2024, I still can't believe that our Kids Life Coach Certifications are now accredited Diploma Trainings. I have come a long way from my early career days of being a school teacher and counsellor and I am sooooo excited for what this year holds in store for our global network of Kids Life Studio® Coaches!!

With life coaching children continuing to expand and grow in most countries, I have noticed trends and cycles since I first started this journey over twenty years ago! If you haven't as yet read my blog on the history of kids life coaching, it makes for some interesting insights!  It shows how the demand for support has increased exponentially since the pandemic and that the market is ready for more productive and more proactive goal orientated approaches to improve children's wellbeing. 

That being said there is a common thread in that everybody has now heard of kids life coaching but I have felt excited that we are still the emergent...

To understand Play Based Coaching, you need to understand play, and this links to the fundamentals of what we do at Kids Life Studio®. We play with a purpose so that we can facilitate personal development in children through speaking a 'language' that they are already fluent in.

Play is the universal language of childhood and it teaches children so many skills to use throughout their lives. Through play, children discover the world and themselves. Most importantly, play allows for a time of fun, no worries, just pure joy.

Having fun and playing is what every child wants and enjoys. It our collective  job as adults to help remove the barriers to play. There is no such thing as a child who doesn’t like to play. There may be a child who has faced trauma and perhaps has lost touch with their natural inherent wisdom to connect through play.

Through Play Based Coaching®, children are given the opportunity to explore their role and place in the world and to understand...

You may well have already have experienced for yourself, that one of the things that make us unique as an organisation is that we place high value on personal relationships. When you participate in our training, we consider you part of our Kids Life Studio® Global Network of Alumni’s.

The definition of being an Alumni means that you are a graduate or former student of an educational institution such as Kids Life Studio® Coach Academy

All of or active member Alumni's are delighted to have been part of the whispers that our highest level of kids life coach training has now officially achieved Level 5 Diploma status (equivalent to an undergraduate degree). This means that if you certify with us, you can be listed as an Accredited member of a professional body through our organisation!

In  our Kids Life Coaching Diploma immersive online training you will learn how to:

• set up your individual and group coaching successfully 
• establish your own niche for...

As we end off 2023, I am so pleased that Kids Life Coaching continues to grow legs and pick up momentum. There seems to be an "army" of children's change makers taking strides to support children to deal with our complex modern world! This year was especially busy with lots of new service providers mushrooming which is testimony to the fact that there is no doubt a need for child orientated coaching services. 

As always, I love to reflect on my accomplishments as the year closes off and for me, the biggest one is upgrading our Kids Life Coach training this year to a Diploma and working on and launching our new Level 1 Introduction to Kids Life Coaching course! Alongside this, I continue researching play based coaching in the psychiatry department at Oxford University. Another highlight is Kids Life Studio® being selected as a member of the Global Accreditation Council, and after attending the 75th anniversary of the World Federation of Mental Health in Geneva,...

The truth hurts but it doesn't make it any less of the truth! Children globally, are faced with so many toxic influences in our modern day world that they are struggling to maintain good mental, physical, social, emotional and spiritual wellbeing. 

With war, terrorism, food shortages, natural disasters, poverty, crime, abuse, neglect and technology influences just being a few of the more serious problems facing them, children need support to navigate life with a full heart, a well equipped mind and a strong physical body.

This is why life coaching is so helpful for children!

Since the pandemic, this innovative approach has become mainstream which is excellent news. With our organisation Kids Life Studio® leading the way since 2003, we have trained a global network of Kids Life Coaches in over 45 countries and counting.  However, what we have noticed is that many new "kids on the block" with good intentions and a heart full of ZEAL (energy and enthusiasm for a cause or...