Should I pay this much for one to one coaching?

[Alacartemenu]

I have completed a group online parenting course for 5 weeks for free. Facilitator was really good and brilliant with advice. He's a life coach of a specific area of self development. He has been doing this for a decade. Have had a chat for private one to one coaching and he's quoted £4000 for a 5 month period of one day a week hour long sessions. I believe this would really help me, but is this price insanely high? or in line with what's available out there for coaching?

Quite. Unless her coaching is how to bag a rich guy, I’m not sure what she thinks she can teach anyone.

How is that unethical? It’s normal business practice to offer taster sessions as it were and then at least you can make an informed decision about the quality of the service and if it’s suitable for you.

It can be unethical to offer free services which then create a dependency on that particular kind of support at an exorbitant price. Offering a 30 mins taster session, or a one off parenting class is very different to offering 5 sessions, building a relationship (and “evidencing” a need) and then asking for £4k.

If someone walked up to you in the street and asked for £4k to help you with your parenting you’d chase them, but having done 5 weeks, had supportive feedback, built a relationship it’s much harder to say “no”. And they must think you need it because otherwise they wouldn’t offer you a service, because they know you and would never take advantage. And they’re such a nice, charismatic person… and before you know it your £4k lighter.

Sorry, just say it's parenting struggles.

Other mums who have experienced similar will be your best support.

I work in children's services, and this is more than we would pay if we were commissioning a service for some bespoke support. As others have said for that price I'd expect an expert, ie someone at doctoral level with years of experience, and even then it would be an unusually high rate. I don't think you're being offered value for money.

I also share @Jellycatspyjamas about this being a potentially exploitative offer.

A parenting coach? You would be better off posting here for specific advice. There isn't a parenting issue in the world this site hasn't seen.
And it's free.

He is praying on your struggles he doesn't want to help you he wants to make money and fast Which child development qualifications does he have for starters?

£200 for an hour session? Hard pass.

I spoke with someone a while back who offered something similar. Helpfully, she told me that she could do a 15-minute call if I didn’t want to spend that much.

£38 for 15 mins of her so very valuable time. Again, it was a hard pass.

(I’m self-employed myself, so do understand service pricing, etc – but just… nah)

I think the question OP is do you feel the sessions will pay for themselves in terms of prospects? What impact would this outlay have on your finances? And does it have to be 20 sessions over 5 months?

It’s expensive, but not unusual for coaching. It all really depends on how good he is and if you are willing to pay!

I don’t think he has done anything unethical in offering a five week course for free and then sharing information about his paid services. The OP has already said that she found it useful. As long as there isn’t a hard sell and people are free to walk away at the end of the five weeks. It’s a legitimate marketing technique and gives the OP a lot of insight into what he will be like as a coach.

He is self employed (which generally works on a day-rate basis) and, while the hourly rate looks high, he will have to keep that part of the day free as he can’t assume that the client will want coaching at a convenient time. So any appointment blocks out other work. For example, he can’t do coaching at 11am and then do a day’s work elsewhere, as part of the day is already used up. So the rate for a coaching session needs to cover him for at least half a day. The client is effectively paying for his availability. 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!

Counsellors have been mentioned on this thread, but many counsellors find it difficult to make their work pay a decent wage - see a recent thread about training to be a counsellor. Perhaps this model more accurately reflects the ongoing cost of an engagement of this kind?

His condensed version will work just the same if you are consistent .

Oh wait, a parenting coach? He’s taking the piss! I bet he thinks he’s found the glitch in the matrix!

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.

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.

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?

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".

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

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

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?

£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)

In what? Parenting?

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…

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.

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.

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.

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.