Should I pay this much for one to one coaching?

ZOMBIE

This man is a charlatan. Please don’t give him £4k.

He came into this as a client .. and then suddenly he was flipped into the role of the coach. Absolutely screams MLM.

Weekly for five months feels like a very big commitment. I'd think about the length and the costs. I think £60 an hour is reasonable

Well he will be passionate for that price

Teenagers are hard for everyone at some point. Take your money and find yourself a therapist for you to explore your reactions and how to handle them. And post here for advice on specific issues, are rows about school or going out or screens? Or just search and read similar threads to see how other handle similar situations.
BaCP have a searchable list of registered therapists. And they are all suitably qualified and will won't tie you massive upfront costs.

https://www.bacp.co.uk/

Run run run.
you don’t want to pay a block of money like that to anyone let alone an unregulated what sounds like p taker.
you could find an amazing qualified psychologist for less an hour. If you didn’t find it helpful you can stop after one two, three or whatever number of sessions.
anyone worth their salt would explain what their tried and tested techniques actually are… and list their qualifications - which you can look up and see if any good etc

I have challenges parenting my teens: it’s hard.

It is unlikely to help you to pay thousands of pounds and give your limited available energy / attention to this man in the hope he can help you regarding parenting.

There are many free or low cost resources, groups etc.

I’m not at teen stage yet but there are many free podcasts and audiobooks you can listen to and address exactly that, including what causes teens to act this way.

OP when people struggle to stay calm or get overwhelmed easily it's often when they have a lot on. Is you day to day life relatively easy or very stressful. What is work like? Are you struggling or worrying about money? Are you and those you care for in good health? What's your housing situation like? Do you get a good night's sleep?

Dealing with children and being patient and calm is really hard. So much of our life can use up the patience we have until there is barely any left. Then it only takes something small from a teen for you to run out of patience entirely. It's then impossible to stay calm.

I would consider assessing your life and seeing if there are other aspects that you need help with. As a previous poster said for £200 a week you could get a lot of support. Maybe you need it in other areas so you have more patience for parenting.

Maybe if you could identify what's behind your reactions, it might be a good place to start and then it will be easier to identify what support would be best.

You don't need to answer them here.

• Do you react the same way to any other situations or is this more isolated to your relationship with your children?
• What are reacting to? Reasonable things or is their behaviour extreme?
• What's behind the reaction?
• Is it more about you or them? I.e. you feel you aren't equiped to deal with them or you are worried about them?
• Can you understand the main emotion driving it - anger, fear, guilt, worry, impatience, exhaustion?
• Are there any differences or similarity between their behaviour and yours as a teenager? Do you worry they'll repeat things you wish you did/didn't go etc?

Yes - and as a psychologist, it wouldn’t be ethical for me to charge that much up front - you would pay hourly and finish if it wasn’t right for you. I’m very sceptical about the upfront payment and the intro group gateway to huge cost.
I also have to be registered with a body that regulates my profession and holds me to account. “coaches” don’t have this. Please do research on this - get quotes from professionals who have a mandatory body to regulate them and compare.

It’s top tier for any kind of coaching price wise.

It’s a pricing model that is not typically considered ethical by most ‘support’ type services (physio, counselling, psychology services, accredited coaches).

It has distinct characteristics of preying on the vulnerable. You may not see yourself as vulnerable but if you see your parenting as needing that much work then you quite possibly are.

For £200 a week, week in, week out you could certainly get things that make a bigger difference to your quality of life.

eg. 3 private GP appointments a week, every week.

Or 3 days a week of nursery.

Or 4 hours of cleaning, a PT session and a massage.

The thing about being a parent is it teaches you to be an expert parent - to your own children. It doesn't teach you how to be an expert to everyone else's!

Indeed, he said this many sessions would be necessary for OP to ‘do the work’ she needs to do on herself.

That’s really expensive for not sure what service!
im happy to share some accounts I follow (and have purchased much cheaper products from that have been helpful for parenting such as managing emotions, feeding child etc).

Does he even have kids?
I know you don't have to. I am a teacher and I don't have kids but I feel this is a bit different. I couldn't advise what to do with a baby screaming at 3am because I don't have the experience but I would talk to other mums and dads

is he American? That an insane price shocked they don’t offer a group option going forward and a con hooking you in with freebies. I do private parenting work and wouldn’t charge more than £50 an hour for private work.

I would not be totally freaked out by this man's hourly rate if you could book just one or two sessions and he sent you a summary after each session with links to other resources etc. It's saying that he knows in advance that you will need five months' worth, and wanting you to commit, that bothers me. There's no justification for it, as there would be if he was running a training course and needed all the students to commit to paying for a whole year of classes in order for the course to be viable.
Anyway, you've decided not to go ahead, which seems sensible. All the best with the next stage of this journey.

*International

I’m a trained coach but I don’t practice, for many of the reasons highlighted above. £200 /hr might be reasonable charge for a corporate rate, so a group coaching session. If he is a member of Intentional Coaching Federation his name will be on their website. Very strict ethics with ICF.
i think you should have time to bed in what you have learned already so that you can properly identify ‘gaps’

Also important to note that a coach does not tell or advise, they probe and challenge and don’t need to say much. A mentor might be a better option for you OP.
as to the ND possibility, it’s worth checking charities in the first instance for courses and development! Good luck

Ok, well I am a bit disappointed that his qualifications are so sparse. Let alone no professional experience with children and families. I was hoping that he was someone with a background in the field who had then come to coaching later on.

It doesn't matter if it's reasonable if people will pay it.

People like you get sucked into thinking they have to pay £1000's to support their child. You don't.

You can get a very competent qualified professional for half that price (not saying you need it, but qualified specialists work for less).

You mentioned you think you/ your DC might be neurodivergent. Have you looked into this at all, spoken to the GP about it? Why not seek out other types of support - there's plenty out there, much of it free or low cost - rather than investing so much in this one person who is clearly milking anxious parents?