Home-based businesses are the wave of the present and the future. According to Home Business Magazine, home-based businesses are a trillion dollar industry. These ventures vary wildly in their scope, and attract people from all walks of life. Working from home is attractive to men and women; single and married people; as well as those fresh out of college, career switchers, and retirees.

For years, corporate and lifestyle coaching has enjoyed popularity among home-based entrepreneurs, and today parent coaching is following suit. Parent coaching is fast becoming one of the best choices for individuals who have the desire to work from home, and with good reason.

One Coach's Story

In many ways, the parent coaching profession is about choice. When seasoned parent coach Peggy Alvarado began to feel stifled in her software technology career, she started exploring her options.

"I started to realize how I really didn't fit anymore in that career," says Alvarado. "It was like I wanted more. I started inquiring with my human resources department about coaching. These two experiences for me started opening a door to something brand new."

Alvarado, who has a degree in computer science, received her Empowerment Coach Certification and obtained Professional Certified Coach status, which put her on the path towards the successful parent coaching practice she enjoys today. This path, however, was not a straightforward one and again Alvarado had choices to make.

"I knew coaching was the thing for me," says Alvarado. "At first, I had one foot in that new world and one foot in my old world because such a lucrative and successful career, no matter how dead you might feel in it, is hard to leave. It was clear to me that coaching was the way to go, but not clear to me that I could make the exact money that I could in corporate. Then when I started my family, it was much more important for me to give time to my family life, which then made my coaching career prominent."

Becoming a Parent Coach

Training to become a parent coach is also an area of choices. Certification can take anywhere from six months to two years to complete, depending on the chosen program. There are a number of coach certification programs available, and parent coaches must choose between two courses of study. They must choose to either become a certified lifestyle coach with a parent coaching as their niche specialty or become a certified parent coach. Programs like the ACPI Certified Parent Coach program specifically train individuals to become parent coaches.

People who choose a certified parent coach program undertake training that not only teaches them how to coach, it teaches them how to coach parents. Most of these programs are offered through a combination of online, teleclass, and in person training. Many coaching certification programs also include a marketing component designed to help newly certified coaches launch a practice.

How Parent Coaching Works

Once certified, parent coaches typically enjoy the flexibility of working from home. They hold client meetings either over the telephone, through E-mail, in person or any combination of the three. How and when these meetings take place are up to the coach, as are the number of clients the coach chooses to take on. Some coaches prefer to work part time and pursue outside interests or raise their families, while others choose to build a full-time practice. All coaches are required to market themselves, which can be accomplished any of a number of ways. Some coaches choose to hold seminars and give presentations to local parenting groups and government agencies, while others write articles and market themselves through the Internet. Still others offer special time specific programs that give parents the opportunity to work with the coach and see if theirs is a good match that can be called upon in the future.

Parent coaches can work with one or both parents, and concentrate on giving parents the confidence it takes to raise their children. Situations coaches encounter are often as varied as their client base. Coaches may be called upon to help parents who are struggling with a particular childrearing issue or they may be asked to help guide a parent to achieve life/work balance or they may be asked to gather resources and assist a family in setting up a discipline structure. There is really no one problem or situation that parent coaches work with. They work on helping their clients obtain goals as they relate to their children and their family life.

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Dr. Caron B. Goode is the founder of the Academy for Coaching Parents International, a training and certification program for parent coaches. In addition to duties with the academy, Goode is the founding editor of the website InspiredParenting.net, and the author of ten books, the most recent of which is Nurture Your Child Gift. For more information on The Academy for Coaching Parents International or to sign up for academy announcements, visit www.acpi.biz.

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