The Coaching We Never Got: One School’s Experiment in Supporting Parents

I am a parent. I think that I’m a terrible parent. Sometimes, I know I’m a great parent.  I’ll be honest: I have no idea. As a Head of School, some parents assume that I am naturally—or perhaps academically—obviously a wonderful parent. They have no idea.

A trend has recently become apparent during a pilot project at our school, Romerike International School, Norway. Parents are beset with doubt and anxiety: Am I doing it right? Should I do this? Should I have done that?

At school, a group of teachers circled the coffee machine, discussing the absence of training for us as parents, the expectations we place on ourselves, and the judgment we perceive—or consciously and unconsciously inflict—on others. Those of us stalking the coffee machine noted that, here in Norway, support does exist, but only in the direst of situations. Wouldn’t it be great if we could have coaching to get us through the dark times that are not so dire?

So why couldn’t we, as a school, support our parents? We are a community that supports teaching and learning, perhaps we’ve missed our parents. 

Who is Nurturing the Nurturers?

"Nurturing the Nurturers" is a coffee machine-originated pilot project that concluded in June 2025, having started that April. We made some mistakes and had some wonderful successes—many of which the school will never know about. Our first pilot condition was that it must be voluntary and anonymous. Parents were offered a coaching session—our first mistake—with an independent parent coach—our first success. It turns out that a single isolated coaching session is rarely enough. The minimum should be a pair. Having an independent coach has many advantages, it allows for anonymity and a degree of separation from the school. With that in mind, we knew we needed an online coach.

Parent Coaching, Not Parenting Coaching

With feedback from our coach, Nora Clarke, we soon realized the need was for Parent Coaching, not Parenting Coaching. For our parents to be the best parents they could be for the children in our community, they didn’t need parenting tips—they needed to take a moment to consider themselves. Parenting focuses on the child, and the needs of the parent can get lost. This, in turn, can insidiously compromise our capacity to parent. Compromised parents lead to compromised parenting and, ultimately, compromised children. So, for the moment, this is about parents not children. But of course, in the end, it’s about children.

What We Did

Our coach, Nora Clarke, whom we had previously encountered delivering a Teacher Wellbeing workshop, was contracted to offer up to 20 sessions; we only used 11. We offered sessions to all members of the parent community. Initially, 14 parents responded (9% of our parent body), and eight followed through with coaching (5%).

I’ll be honest, we suspected that the parents who would avail themselves of the coaching were the ones who perhaps didn’t really need it. As a school, we created a mechanism to automatically refer parents to Nora. We decided that if a child required an Action Plan, this would trigger a referral. To tell a parent that you think they need coaching is perhaps inadvisable at best. But to tell them that a system in the school has presented them with an opportunity, that’s another matter altogether.

We will never know the true impact that this pilot had on our children, and that’s okay. What we do know, from anonymous feedback, is that:

• Some found it interesting, others empowering.
• Some were frustrated that there was only a single session—this we changed.
• One wrote, “I found a way from the situation which seemed hopeless.”
• Another said, “My only wish is that more parents could have access to these sessions, as I truly see them as a powerful way to strengthen and support our entire RIS community.”

And that will do for me. This was a low stakes initiative that allowed the school to support the wider community. For some, it seems it was lifechanging. 

What’s Next?

What next for our coffee machine pilot? We will continue. But I will be approaching the Parent Association and suggesting they run and finance the initiative. Parents supporting parents, a community initiative.

So parenting, are we getting it right? Perhaps we need some help in knowing, we will never know.