School skills
- Organization, planning, and keeping track of responsibilities
- Beginning, breaking down, and completing assignments
- Time awareness and realistic planning
- School-related anxiety, avoidance, and perfectionism
Coaching for children and teens
Support that sees the whole student
Children and teens do best when they feel understood, capable, and connected—not when every struggle is treated as a behavior to correct. Coaching gives students individualized time to understand what feels difficult, recognize their strengths, and practice practical skills they can use at school, at home, and with friends.
Sessions are warm, structured, and flexible, with the student’s voice and goals at the center.
Schedule a parent consultationA good fit
Coaching may help when a student…
- Knows what needs to be done but struggles to begin.
- Frequently loses track of assignments, belongings, steps, or time.
- Becomes overwhelmed by multi-step tasks or changing expectations.
- Avoids schoolwork because it feels difficult, unclear, or emotionally loaded.
- Has strategies that work in theory but are hard to use consistently.
- Has difficulty recovering after mistakes, frustration, or conflict.
- Needs support navigating friendships or communicating with peers.
- Struggles to ask teachers for help or explain what they need.
- Wants more independence but still benefits from structure and accountability.
- Would benefit from a consistent adult outside the family and school system.
No diagnosis required. A student does not need an ADHD diagnosis to benefit from coaching.
Areas of support
What we may work on
Emotional skills
- Emotional regulation and recovery after frustration
- Handling mistakes, feedback, and transitions
- Understanding ADHD or individual learning needs
Social skills and independence
- Friendship skills, conflict, and social confidence
- Self-advocacy and communicating with teachers
- Creating routines that are supportive rather than rigid
- Building confidence and age-appropriate independence
Session experience
What sessions look like
Sessions are structured enough to provide predictability while remaining flexible, engaging, and responsive to the student’s age, energy, and needs. Depending on the student and the goal, we may use conversation, games, movement, visuals, role-playing, planning tools, problem-solving activities, or practice with real-life situations.
A session may include identifying what happened during a difficult moment, understanding the skill or demand involved, choosing one strategy to try, practicing it together, and deciding how the student will use it during the coming week.
The goal is not to produce a perfect planner or a child who never becomes frustrated. It is to help the student build self-understanding, usable strategies, and confidence that they can handle hard things.
Why support outside the school day can help
School counselors, teachers, and support staff do important work, but school-day meetings are often brief, interrupted, or focused on resolving an immediate concern. Coaching outside school allows more room to slow down, revisit patterns, practice skills, and prepare proactively.
That additional space can turn a helpful idea into a skill the student actually knows how to use.
Parents are partners—without becoming the coach
Parents are an essential part of a child’s support system, but the student is the primary coaching client. Parents may receive general information about goals, skills being practiced, broad progress, and ways to reinforce learning at home.
The aim is to give parents enough information to be supportive without making the child feel watched, reported on, or managed through coaching.
Trust and collaboration
Age-appropriate privacy
At the beginning of coaching, I explain what information will remain private, what may be shared with parents, and when an adult must be involved because of a safety concern or legal obligation. Whenever appropriate, I include the student in deciding how progress or concerns are communicated.
Confidentiality has limits. Full details are provided in the coaching agreement.
Connecting to real life
School collaboration
My school counseling background helps me translate coaching goals into the situations students actually face: classroom directions, homework routines, transitions, recess dynamics, group projects, tests, missing assignments, teacher communication, and difficult school mornings.
With appropriate written permission, I may communicate with a teacher, counselor, therapist, evaluator, or another professional when collaboration would support the student.
Fit and scope
When coaching may not be the right fit
Coaching is not the right level of care for every situation. A student may need therapy, medical care, crisis support, substance-use treatment, an educational or psychological evaluation, intensive academic remediation, or another specialized service when concerns are severe, urgent, or outside the scope of coaching.
Coaching is also unlikely to be useful when a student is being forced to attend and is unwilling to participate in any way. A hesitant student is welcome; the relationship can develop gradually. Meaningful coaching does require at least some willingness to engage, experiment, and communicate.
When another type of support appears more appropriate, I will communicate that honestly and help the family consider next steps.
Let’s talk about what your child needs.
An initial consultation gives us a chance to discuss what you are noticing, what your child thinks, what has already been tried, and whether coaching may be a useful next step.