What is Parent Coaching?

Parent coaching is a supportive and collaborative process designed to help you better understand your child and strengthen your parenting approach.

At Courageous Connections, we focus on helping families navigate separation, divorce, and co-parenting challenges while keeping children at the center.

Through parent coaching, we support you to:

Understand your child’s emotional needs, behaviour, and development
Respond in ways that build connection, safety, and trust
Strengthen attachment and emotional regulation
Set clear, consistent, and compassionate boundaries
Reduce conflict and support healthier co-parenting

Coaching Models

One Coach Model

Both parents work with the same coach.

This model focuses on:

Developing a shared parenting plan
Building a consistent understanding of your child’s needs
Strengthening communication between parents
Creating aligned parenting strategies
Supporting cooperative co-parenting

Two Coach Model

Each parent has their own coach, who collaborate together.

This model is ideal when:

Conflict is high
Communication is difficult or unproductive
A shared space does not feel safe or appropriate

Coaches work together to:

Align on child-focused goals
Reduce mixed messages between homes
Support consistency in routines, expectations, and responses

The focus always remains on protecting children from exposure to conflict.

Coaches

Kathleen McDonald MSW RSW DCP(Candidate)

Parent coaching at Courageous Connections is grounded in an attachment-based and child-centered approach. Kathleen supports parents in understanding their child’s emotional world, developmental needs, and behaviours through the lens of attachment theory. Recognizing that a child’s sense of safety, connection, and security is foundational to their overall wellbeing. When parents are supported to respond with consistency, attunement, and emotional awareness, children are better able to regulate, adapt, and thrive.

A key focus of this work is reducing conflict and supporting family reorganization following separation or divorce. Kathleen works with parents to shift away from adversarial dynamics and toward a more cooperative, child-focused approach. This includes strengthening communication, creating consistent routines across homes, and developing parenting plans that reflect the evolving needs of the child. The goal is not perfection, but increased stability, predictability, and emotional safety for the child.

Central to her approach is honouring the voice of the child. This means helping parents understand their child’s experience and ensuring that decisions are guided by the child’s best interests and emotional wellbeing. By bringing the child’s perspective into the work, we can reduce their exposure to conflict and support stronger, more secure relationships within the family system.

Kristen Letkeman MSW RSW

Kristen uses a trauma-informed and strengths-based approach, she helps parents navigate difficult conversations, manage transitions between homes, and respond to challenges with greater clarity and confidence. Her goal is to support respectful, solution-focused co-parenting relationships that feel sustainable over time.

Kristen works alongside parents to build practical strategies that align with their values while fostering security and resilience for their children. At the heart of her work is the belief that even when relationships between parents change, children can thrive when they are supported by caregivers who are equipped, supported, and focused on what matters most; their child’s well-being.

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