Side Coaching Your Kids

July 29, 2006

If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!

What is “side coaching”? It is basically talking with your children about their play when you are doing something else, for example:

Today I was typing on my computer and my daughter was playing with her doll and putting her baby to “sleep,” I wasn’t fully engaged with her in pretend play, but I was “side coaching” by saying, “is baby hungry?” then my daughter took my clue and ran to the toy basket to find her baby’s bottle, I just bought another few minutes on my email. Then after the bottle is done, I say, “is baby ready for a walk?” and then she goes and grabs her stroller…you get the idea.

Side coaching works well with kids aged 18 months and up. I even do it with my son and his legos. I give him ideas of what to create, suggest potential storylines, conflict (dinosaurs coming to attack), I’m able to watch them play in my living room and get more done on the computer that way. Then we take a break, eat snacks, go change diapers…

Just a tip if you’re a mom entrepreneur.