Should I pay this much for one to one coaching?

Please re-read this. Particularly the bit about booking for five months and how that appears to be ethically dubious.

I came on to suggest the Laura Markham course.

@Alacartemenu have you tried Bonnie Harris or Dr Laura Markham? They both do online courses which are life changing (well for me anyway ! ). Look them up

https://www.connectiveparenting.com

https://www.peacefulparenthappykids.com/about

bang saved you 4k !

Chatgpt is nearly at a level to help with coaching etc and by next year I think it will be of a comparable standard.

Nooooooo that’s far too expensive. I work as a neurodiversity coach (mainly ADHD) and charge £35 an hour. Please don’t get sucked in to paying for 5 months of coaching that you may not need.

Why five months?

I'd be concerned that he wants you to pay upfront for a such large number of sessions? Why can't you pay for a couple of sessions and see how it goes and then if it's worth £200 an hour you can sign up for more.

For sure – including all the coaches coaching the other coaches on how to be more successful / mindful / heart centred / congruent / yadda yadda / coaches 😅

I'm starting coaching - how to make your life easier and grow your wealth

£4k a session, minimum booking 10 sessions.

There is a massive pyramid scheme life coaching scam going on in the UK, please please look into it before parting with any money.

It’s ridiculously expensive but if you feel it would be worth it for you then go for it. I hope he doesn’t demand the whole amount up front. What happens if he’s ill or has a personal crisis and has to stop? Make sure there’s a proper contract detailing these things.

The charges are high because he won’t have a coaching client every hour of the week, nor even every day.

He might be a charlatan. He might be highly qualified. Only the OP can assess the situation. But this is the pricing model that he is using and, in an unregulated market, there is very little that anyone can do about it as long as he is representing his offering truthfully.

Don’t get me wrong, I personally believe in a large and well-funded state. I believe that there should be a children’s centre within reasonable distance of the OP’s home where she could access either individual or group parenting support, with easy access to referrals if needed. Or additional services available via school. But we all know that such services have been de-funded and hollowed out for political reasons and that creates gaps in which private providers can thrive.

their expertise and knowledge, and help tackling specific issues. They have tried and tested techniques that work.

How do you know they work? What material changes have you seen in your own parenting since working with them? In parenting there’s really no magic wand, there are lots of strategies and techniques but no guarantees. Have you checked out their qualifications and experience ie not just listened to what their website says. There’s a huge amount of money to be made by people purporting to have all the answers.

Hi OP,

I am a clinical psychologist and specialise in parenting support. I have trained for almost 10 years, have a doctorate, masters and undergrad plus lots of post doctoral training in particular models of therapy. I work between the nhs and private work and I charge 180 per session. This is in central London.

Unless this person is a highly specialist clinical psychologist they should not be charging that much. Actually the model of payment they are using (X months for X) worries me because from a therapeutic perspective we don’t ’trap’ people to keep them coming because they have laid. Ethically, you only want to see people whilst it is helpful and that model wouldn’t allow for this.

There are bespoke parenting groups which are well tailored, informative and evidence based online that you can do for free. This is all dependent on your child’s age and specific needs but younger children - the incredible years or Solihull groups are very good and as young people get older there are other options. Otherwise most local CAMHS services provide support for families like this (although I know there is a huge variation between areas).

if you did want to pay for parenting support privately I would recommend seeing a clinical psychologist if you’re thinking about spending that sort of money. Obviously I am biased but the skillset and level of training and experience practitioners have comes through very strongly with individual work. Anyone can run a good few parenting sessions.

I also echo what others have said. Many many of these coaches have absolutely no relevant or credible qualifications. I worked with one who actually had “Dr so and so” as her name on all her materials, think life/relationship coaching. Her PhD was in drama…

In what? Parenting?

£200 an hour? And what’s the cost/return for this… as in will the benefit to your life make it a sound financial investment?
What can you get out of this coaching that you wouldn’t get out of therapy at a significantly lower cost?
I’ll be honest, I haven’t yet come across a coach that isn’t a complete charlatan. And I say that as someone who has worked with a lot of them indirectly (think designing course materials/marketing mails etc)

Exactly! A £4k package (and particularly for parenting advice rather than say business mentoring or something that might expect to see a return on investment) is just outrageous. Why in particular does OP need twenty sessions?

Well he isn't going to ha e negative reviews on his website is he? Sit on it for a while

No, £40 per hour is a very modest self-employed rate.

I would certainly be looking at other options first. There's loads of help online; talk to other parents, post on here and people might be able to guide you. Is there a specific issue you're struggling with, or is it parenting in general?

You’ve done 5 weeks of sessions - has that helped? If so, can you continue to put what you learned into practice for a few months and see how things go? What more do you expect to get out of one-to-ones?

i should caveat that I'm very skeptical of "coaches" in general, having known a couple of people who've set themselves up in that area with no qualifications or any real experience. I wouldn't trust either of them with advice on counting to 10. One even claimed that "It's better to charge more because it makes you look more impressive".

But three coaching hours per day becomes a reasonable day rate and covers some of his ongoing business development, including running free five-week courses!

£600 is a very good day rate indeed, the free course is easy - the materials once written stay pretty much the same, online platform so minimal costs. I do both online training and 1:1 work (not coaching) and make a decent living without charging £4k for five months. Usually coaching and therapy are, at most, booked a few weeks in advance - starting out prepaying 20 sessions is exploitative. What happens if 4 weeks in @Alacartemenu decides it’s not working for her?

Honestly, I think this is horrific and he's exploiting struggling parents.

What exactly are his qualifications? I'd expect a PhD/MD and 10+ years of working clinicically with, say, ND children (if appropriate) or in Children's Social Care before I'd even consider ONE hour session at £200.

Anyone can call themselves a Coach.

Honestly I've seen similar on Facebook groups aimed at mums in business. They offer amazing free sessions on how to develop and grow your business. How to use social media etc. Then once they have you they offer coaching sessions at exorbitant prices. When you look into their background none of them run successful businesses.

Use Mumsnet it really is an amazing resource. if you need more support on specific issues with regards parenting there are lots of different organisations out there sometimes you just need someone to point you in the right direction. We had amazing support for our son from a local charity I had never heard of but found after speaking to safeguarding at school. i hope you can get something sorted.