Coaching Case Study: Mother-Daughter Communication

Coaching Case Study By Ann Marie Donlin
(Life Coach/Mentor Coach, UNITED STATES)

1. Who are the main players in this case study

The Client and her daughter

2. What is the core problem or challenge you applied your coaching skills to?

• Why is it a problem?-Difficulty communicating with her daughters. The client feels like she can’t say anything right. She reports her daughter seem to just take everything she says as judgement.
• How long has it been a problem?-About a year or so before she started meeting with me.
• What is the worst thing about this problem?-She and her daughter stopped talking and in her last face to face visit they both did a lot of crying due to hurt feelings.
• Why has no one been able to solve it so far?-They seem to keep repeating the same responses to each other, no one had changed how the communicate.

2. What specific coaching skills or approach did you use in this case?

Powerful Listening, Powerful Questions, Creating Structures, Creating Action and Acknowledgement.

3. Explain your process in detail

Through the coaching skill of Powerful Listening I was able to comprehend the problem, then using Powerful Questions the client was able to determine that she would like to change the approach she uses with her daughter.

Together we brainstormed some ideas to Create Structures she could put into place for her communications with her daughter for example, letter writing. Then the client created an action plan of writing 5 or 6 notes all in one sitting but mailing them out at different times over the next few months.

These notes sent through regular mail every couple of weeks were to let her daughter know that she was thinking of her, no advise no judgements. I Acknowledged the changes and progress that she reported to me, and she in turn, did the same with her daughter, acknowledgement that is, as she would call her mom when she received the notes and they would share a good, healthy conversation.

4. What were the results of your process? Was your coaching/program effective? Why? Why not?

So far, the client reports the results have been very good. On her last visit to see her daughter face to face, no drama, no crying. The client reports they enjoyed their time together. The client reports she continues to work on communication with both her daughters but has not brought the subject back to coaching at this time.

5. If you could approach this problem again, what would you do differently?

It took the client and I a while to get to the heart of the communication issue due to the client feeling so right in the way that she approached her daughter. I believe if I had chosen better questions that were more focused on the client and not the situation I could have helped her to get there sooner.

6. What are the top 3 things you learnt from this experience?

1. There are a lot of 50+ aged people out there having a hard time communicating with their children.
2. I have discovered how to back paddle to the client and away from the story.
3. And with that, I am practicing more client focus and less story focus.