Would you pay for any kind of parenting support?

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My son has just turned 3 and so I've now experienced many of the ups and downs of early years and have totally fallen in love with this age group. I've been lucky enough to come across various non-authoritarian approaches of parenting which have been transformative for my relationship with my son in the many major tension moments that arise and it has got me thinking about training in parent 'coaching' (though I really dislike this expression as it's patronising at best) to help other parents handle challenging behaviour. My question is whether you would pay for advice in any shape or form and if so how would you choose such a service? Thanks so much

No. Most people use tried and tested methods....the ones provided by medical professionals.

My advice is to start blogging about your experiences. It's not terribly hard to make money from blogging.

Thanks FortunesFave. I'd love to hear what you mean by that as the methods I have come by have variously been recommended by child psychologists. I just wanted to check what you were specifically thinking of to make sure my question isn't misunderstood if you'd be kind enough to share? Doctors are not trained psychologists so personally i would never even think to ask them about behaviour but it's interesting to me that this is what you think of. Many thanks for your input

Using methods which have been recommended by child psychologists is not the same as BEING a child psychologist.

Doctors...as in GPs, make referrals to expert professionals. That's what most people are (rightly) comfortable with.

Anyone can set themselves up as someone who provides parenting support...it's not ideal though as there's a reason it takes years to become a practicing child behaviour specialist.

Thanks for sharing. I would definitely never purport to be able to help with behaviour issues that are out of the norm. Learning to practice as a parent support would have to include how to spot problems out of the norm and referrals to specialists would be part and parcel of any such service. Based on what I know at this stage, I think any childhood professional should be able to establish on a free initial phone call to parents whether the behaviour they describe is normal or probably special needs. Thanks again for your input.

I think parents would go to HVs and nursery /pre-school workers first as they have a more wide experience of kids (and it's free) where as you unfortunately seem to only have experience of one.
Saying that there might be a market of someone you can contact when adults are struggling with stuff like sleep training or crying due to dummy removal

Thank you for your input TotorosCatBus. That's interesting- I can see why parents would do this and a pal has just decided to follow the approach her nursery follows to give her son a consistent message. I would not just set up such a business without training in a methodology which is tried and tested eg Sarah ockwell smith approaches, hand in hand parenting or any other approach that has delivered results for parents. Scientific validation per se is extremely difficult in the context of children as there are many ethical considerations which make it impossible to do as science is done in other areas of empirical Knowledge. But for example I have followed the Facebook group of Sarah Ockwell Smith's Gentle Parenting approach where thousands of parents (a valid study number) share their trials and tribulations and discuss how gentle parenting is affecting daily life and their little ones development so can see that traditional authoritarian approaches that haven't worked can be replaced by authoritative but gentle approaches. Many parents there talk of negative patterns of parenting they received as children which left emotional scars which they are trying to do away with through their own parenting. I have also used a very popular book 'how to speak so little kids will listen' which has been game changing for us as a family (and many Friends). All these approaches take from what we now know of how the human brain works in early years.

Are people are interested in parenting books as in the past? My parents generation had books like Dr Spock where as i only read books once I had problems- in my case 1-2-3 Magic, Siblings Without Rivalry, How to Talk so Kids will Listen (spot a theme here?)
I have just looked up who Sarah Ockwell Smith is but this might be because my kids are teens but the popular books (judging by discussion forums at the time) were more Gina Ford so the opposite of gentle parenting.

Ha! Sibling troubles. I hear they're real. Sadly we havent been blessed with these challenges but there are some incredible books now for these challenges (calm parents, happy siblings was alwaysthe one I'd have used if we had been) Back in the day I think there was Gina Ford but also siegel who advocated for Attachment parenting. My SIL was pushing us gently to sleep train our son having followed Gina Ford. But when I explained there is some evidence to suggest you may end up discouraging your kids to share their troubles with you she became terribly quiet - she has struggled with teenagers who all 3 don't share with her in spite of how lovely she is. I couldn't risk it. Her parents have been amazed at how warm and expressive our son is. It of course all may be luck and it's awful to gloat but I'm just excited by the ways in which small tweaks in the way I conduct my relationship with my son have paid dividends with standard challenging toddler behaviour

Also as said in a previous comment I'm not working on a case study of one... there is just a lot of evidence to suggest that there are more gentle ways to encourage positive behaviours..

Have you name changed, OP? It's a bit confusing.

Yes, people do pay for support. Hand in Hand accredited practitioners often have private practices or run groups. Gurus like Dr Tina Payne Bryson (who co-writes a lot with Dr Seigel) run paid-for master classes as well as doing a lot of talks and providing content free. She's doing one at the moment with The Big Life Journal crowd on perfectionism. Dr Ross Greene too.

So what I'm saying is that the people who write the books and moderate the fora like the various kinds g-established H-inH ones do provide this support. You'd need to work out how to compete with what is already on offer.

Best parenting advice I ever had was from a very experienced childminder who had seen it all!

What training do you yourself have to offer other parents support?