Targeted Integrative Parenting Strategies (TIPS) Coaching™ is an ICCM concept to support clients with custodial and parenting challenges. A parent coach can work with a parent directly in the home and on the phone for in-the-moment help. In high conflict cases involving a parent who is engaging in behaviors harmful to the emotional health of the child, a parent coach can help the non-harming parent learn and apply parenting techniques to minimize the harm to the child’s neural development.

TIPS Coaching™ typically utilizes concepts from The Whole Brain Child (WBC) series of books by Dan Siegel and Tina Payne-Bryson. (Other parenting books are listed below.) WBC offers 12 simple parenting strategies based on the neuroscience of parenting and childhood development. These strategies help parents manage their child’s meltdowns and help maximize neural development to promote flexible thinking, effective emotion management, optimal behavior, and independent motivation. WBC is built on the foundation of Interpersonal Neurobiology (IPNB).

Raising Parents: Attachment, Representation, and Treatment, Crittenden, Patricia M., (2015, 2nd ed.), provides a deeper foundation for TIPS Coaching™. Raising Parents challenges and enhances our understanding of why parents do what they do, what is effective and harmful parenting, how to improve empathy, and how to create a nurturing environment to support a parent. It also offers specific examples of what constitutes effective and harmful parenting, and what to do to enhance parenting. Raising Parents is built on the Dynamic Maturational Model of Attachment and Adaptation (DMM), which combines attachment theory knowledge with the healing power of sensitively responsive relationships.

The TIPS Coaching™ model is designed to function in a conflict situation and incorporates a framework that can help reduce or prevent conflict escalation. The model identifies and provides solutions around various issues specific to litigation. Consideration is given to establishing a confidential relationship and then determining whether or not the coach should testify, or continue to maintain a privileged and confidential relationship. Motivation to improve parenting is often a challenge, especially in a litigation context where fear may be heightened, so specific approaches to promote parental motivation are utilized. The model does not incorporate “therapy” for children, although if structured appropriately a therapeutic approach for the parent can be incorporated. It incorporates ICCM tools such as Integrative Listening and Equipoise. Advanced techniques incorporate the ICCM 2-Pattern Conflict Model (DMM-based) to identify and target issues and concerns with child and adult attachment patterns.

TIPS Coaching™ is scalable to work in cases involving a range of conflict, from low through high, and across a continuum of financial means. A team approach is encouraged, involving the coach, lawyer, and potentially other professionals involved in the litigation. Coaches can have any type of relevant background and education. ICCI offers training and resource materials to help lawyers and coaches build TIPS Coaching™ networks.

Additional foundation and reference books include: Integrative Parenting: Strategies for Raising Children Affected by Attachment Trauma, Wesselmann, Schweitzer & Armstrong (2014); Discipline with an Adoption Twist, Moore, Deborah, (undated), www.EMKPress.com http://www.emkpress.com/pdffiles/disciplinesw.pdf ; Between parent and child, Ginott, Haim, (1965, revised and updated, 2003); Respectful Parents, Respectful Kids: 7 Keys to Turn Family Conflict into Cooperation, Hart, S. & Kindle Hodson, V. (2006); and Mind in the Making: The Seven Essential Life Skills Every Child Needs, Galinsky, Ellen, (2010).