73. Three Questions I Get Asked Most Often (as a Parent Coach)
Parents ask me a lot of questions. The details change with the age of the child and the season of the family, but most fall into one of three categories:
How do I get my child to do something?
How do I stop myself from doing something?
How do I know if I’m doing any of this right?
These sound like practical parenting questions. Sometimes practical tools really do help. But each question also contains an assumption that can quietly send us looking for the wrong kind of answer.
So rather than offering another list of parenting tips, let’s audit the questions themselves.
Question #1: “How Do I Get My Child to…?”
What the question assumes
There must be something I can say, promise, or take away that will produce the response I want.
This is why parents often move toward stronger consequences, bigger rewards, or better scripts when a child isn’t cooperating. We feel responsible for teaching our children how to function in the world, so their resistance can feel like evidence that we aren’t doing our job.
But children are people with their own feelings, needs, preferences, and agency. We can make cooperation more likely; we cannot guarantee it.
What to ask instead
What can I actually do here?
What does my child need from me right now?
Is the outcome I want more for me - or for them?
Consider a child who refuses to do homework. A parent focused on compliance may keep adding leverage. A parent focused on understanding might discover that the child is confused, overwhelmed, exhausted, or afraid of getting it wrong. The child may need help breaking the work into smaller pieces - or they may understand the expectation and need to experience a reasonable consequence for choosing not to follow through.
The better question doesn’t make the parent powerless. It directs their influence toward teaching, supporting, setting a boundary, and allowing the child to own what follows.
Question #2: “How Do I Stop…?”
What the question assumes
If I know better and try harder, I should be able to stop.
Most parents who want to stop doing something (yelling, shutting down, giving in, etc.) already know what they would rather do. The problem isn’t always a lack of information. It’s that knowing what to do and being able to access it in a difficult moment are different things.
Reactions have a context. Exhaustion, stress, limited capacity, nervous-system activation, and old experiences can all shape the way we respond. That context does not excuse harmful behavior. It shows us where responsibility can begin.
What to ask instead
What happens before I react - and what would help me choose differently a little earlier?
Maybe you ask your child four times before you yell. The yelling feels sudden, but the pattern began with the first ignored request and the frustration you tried not to acknowledge. There may have been an earlier opportunity to move closer, speak clearly, offer more information, or follow through.
If we only study the explosion, we miss the places where change first becomes possible. The goal isn’t to guarantee that we never react badly again. It is to recognize the pattern sooner, recover more quickly, and make another response more available over time.
Question #3: “Am I Doing Parenting Right?”
What the question assumes
There is one correct response - and my child’s reaction will tell me whether I found it.
But a child being upset does not automatically mean a boundary was wrong. A child being happy with us does not automatically mean our decision was healthy. Their response is important information, but it is not a final verdict on our parenting.
This also doesn’t mean everything we do is fine because we are trying our best. Intentions matter, but so does impact. Healthy parenting requires us to receive feedback and change when something isn’t working.
What to ask instead
Am I staying close enough to notice how this is affecting my child - and flexible enough to respond to what I learn?
Look at patterns over time. Is your child able to bring hard things to you? Can they disagree without fearing you? Are your boundaries helping them develop skills, or are they mostly helping you feel in control? When something goes wrong, can you listen, take responsibility, repair, and try again?
Those questions won’t give you perfect certainty. They offer something more useful: a way to remain responsive as your child and your relationship change.
You May Not Need More Parenting Advice
Parents rarely come to coaching because they have no ideas. More often, they have too many. They don’t know which advice fits their child, why they cannot follow through on what they already know, or what is underneath the problem they are trying to solve.
Parent coaching creates space to slow the situation down. We look at the behavior, but also at expectations, triggers, patterns, capacity, and values. Sometimes the next step is a practical tool or clearer boundary. Sometimes it is realizing that the apparent problem isn’t the real problem at all.
The purpose isn’t to hand parents a perfect script that guarantees cooperation. It is to help them see more clearly, understand what they can influence, and choose a response they can carry into this moment - and the next one.
A Better Place to Begin
Underneath these three parenting questions, we are often looking for control, change, and certainty. Those are deeply human things to want when the well-being of someone we love feels tied to the choices we make.
But parenting asks us to keep showing up without guarantees. We teach lessons that may take years to settle in. We hold boundaries our children may not appreciate yet. We repair without being able to erase what happened.
Doing it right may not mean finding the perfect answer to every parenting question. It may look more like staying curious, remaining willing to adjust, and continuing to find your way back to the relationship you are building over time.
To schedule a FREE 20-minute Insight Session to gain clarity on your own version of one of these questions, click HERE.
♥ Your Parent Coach, Brittney
