HELPING STRESSED DADS BALANCE WORK AND FATHERHOOD
Everything You Need to Know About Our Private 1 to 1 Dad Coaching
Interested in private 1 to 1 coaching with Inspiring Dads? All your questions answered here.
One to one coaching can feel like a big investment, and I understand that if you’re going to invest your money you want to know if this is right for you. So before I give you the chance of setting up a 1 to 1 call to explore your options, I want you to take the time to understand more about what we offer and why.
Ian Dinwiddy
Founder of Inspiring Dads
An overview of our 1 to 1 coaching.
Inspiring Dads specialises in paternity coaching for businesses and organisations, supporting ‘first year fathers’ to process the emotional and practical upheaval of fatherhood, regardless of whether they are first time dads or more experienced / worn out (!)
It helps them understand and navigate their way through the immediate stress and worry, building solid foundations and high quality, equitable relationships for the future. But that’s not all we do - we work with dads throughout their dad journey.
At the heart of all our client work Is:
“how to be a great dad, without sacrificing a great career?”
Dads benefit from a judgment free environment which supports open and honest conversations, exploring the pressures of modern day fatherhood. With the NCT reporting that the number of men who become depressed in the first year after becoming a dad is double that of the general population and 1 in 10 dads-to-be will also become depressed during their partner’s pregnancy, it’s clear that supporting new dads is crucial to help them feel more confident, involved, and valued in their role as parents. This support contributes to healthier family dynamics, strengthens the bond between father and child, and fosters a more inclusive parenting culture, benefiting both the individual and the wider community.
We deliver coaching to organisations including:
What problems Can Our Coaching solve?
✅ How to manage the emotional and practical impacts of fatherhood.
✅ How to build meaningful and balanced relationships at home.
✅ Coping with the childcare logistics of being part of a dual-income couple.
✅ How to be successful at work and at home.
✅ Defining and maintaining healthy workplace boundaries.
What’s included in Our 1 to 1 Coaching Packages?
3, 5 or 7 Private 1 to 1 Coaching sessions.
Our ‘Identifying and Achieving Your Path’ - ‘Training’ course.
The option to upgrade to ‘The New Dads Accelerator’ course
DISC personality profile (s)
WhatsApp support
What does The Identifying and Achieving Your Path course Include?
Click on the image to discover more
Wheel of Life.
Your Five Key People of Influence.
Identifying Your Values.
Create your 'Be, Do, Have' list.
'Be, Do, Have' Meets 'Wheel of Life'
Digging Deeper Into Your Why.
Identify Your Top Five Objectives.
How Much Money Do Your Objectives Require?
Design Your Ideal Working Week.
How does a DISC profile help you?
Gain insight into your behavioural preferences.
Learn how your approach changes under pressure.
Discover HOW you like to do things and how this effects your relationships with those around you.
Learn how to apply this knowledge to every day life, both in work and personal relationships.
Platinum members receive a 2nd, ‘partners profile’ as part of their package.
Silver and Gold Packages can add a 2nd DISC report for just £49
How much do our Private coaching Packages cost?
*** Contact us to discuss our organisational pricing structure.
upgrade to The New Dads Accelerator course content for just £39.
Add a 2nd DISC report for just £49 and receive Key tips for better communicate in your relationship.
If you have a work Health and Wellbeing fund, your organisation might pay for your coaching like it did for my client Daniel
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If you have a work Health and Wellbeing fund, your organisation might pay for your coaching like it did for my client Daniel ~
Who is this for?
✅ You want to discover your values, priorities and authentic purpose.
✅ You are ready to develop your communication skills and nurture key relationships.
✅ You need to create a work life ‘balance’ that delivers the priorities that really matter to you.
✅ You need practical tips for juggling work / life balance within the family context.
But, it’s Time to be honest…
1 to 1 coaching isn’t going to be for everyone. You’ve got to be ready to make a change, to take action and you’ve also got to ready to be emotionally vulnerable, honest with yourself and honest with me.
If you can’t let go of your thoughts and let me in then it’s not going to work. In short you need to trust me and trust yourself.
That’s why we jump on a free call first, to discover if the chemistry is there.
Once we start - it’s not just about talking, it’s about taking action. I’ll be your guide but it can’t do it for you.
Your goals, your action, your success
What could you use coaching for?
Taking Your leave…
Reflecting on your hopes and fears of fatherhood.
Strengthen relationships at work in preparation for taking leave and minimise impact on career.
Creating and communicating a handover plan.
Keeping in touch during leave to ensure continued visibility where appropriate.
Setting up a support network and communication plan.
Preparing for the parental leave ‘culture shock.’ Two long stints as a stay at home makes me particularly well qualified on this subject!
Returning from leave…
‘Reconnecting’ – sharing of experiences, highs and lows and key lessons.
Assessing options for returning to work.
Understanding any changes in personal and family values.
Preparing ‘return to work’ meetings with managers.
Preparing for the return to work – the practical considerations (childcare, contingency plans, time management)
Working on relationships and visibility.
Longer term objectives…
Identifying the benefits and challenges of work to you and your family.
Are all the factors that lead to a longer-term healthy work / family ‘balance’ in place?
Assessing and understanding career direction (and changes to the plan).
Assessing time management skills needed for managing work / family ‘balance’.
Identifying and managing stress points.
How do you access the ‘Identifying Your Path’ content?
Once you sign up, you will receive an email from us with your login information.
Then you’ll log into a learning platform, Thinkific, using the login instructions in the email.
Once you sign in, you’ll see the dashboard area, from where you can access all the videos and resources.
What results can I expect?
Lots more testimonials here: https://www.inspiringdads.co.uk/testimonials
How do I sign up?
Before I let you part with your hard earned cash, you need to book a free 30 min video call with me to talk about what keeps you awake at night.
We’ll discover what you are hoping to achieve.
How I can help you and whether we want to work together.
We’ll dig into your thoughts and observations, your highs and your lows.
I’ll challenge your inconsistencies.
We notice the hidden subtext.
We create some initial momentum.
You reflect on your new found understanding and clarity.
We work together to make progress towards the goals that really matter to you.
If you prefer to work things through on your own, at a pace that works for you - why not check out our course content here >>> https://courses.inspiringdads.co.uk/
Image courtesy of Heidi Fin @framesbyfin via Unsplash
new Dads are new parents too
Nicki Seignot, Author of 'Mentoring New Parents at Work' and founder of The Parent Mentor talks to James and Ian in episode 36 of Lockdown Dads.
New dads are new parents too
Nicki Seignot, Author of 'Mentoring New Parents at Work' and founder of The Parent Mentor talks to James and Ian in episode 36 of Lockdown Dads.
We discuss why supporting new dads matters, the role single dad Phil played to broadening Nicki’s horizons, beyond just supporting the maternity journey and what the post pandemic work landscape could look like.
Plus the usual podcast musings about schools going back, sunshine (!) and looking forward to better future.
Contents
00:50 The power of daylight in the mornings
02:15 Schools going back
02:45 Competitive world book day
04:00 Ian is looking forward to not apologising…
05:30 Christmas presents (!) and Covid
07:10 Nicki’s path-
Taking maternity leave in the late 1990s.
Hard choices and work just not working for mums
Mum2Mum mentoring programme at Asda
The important role of single dad, Phil
That 2011 program became The Parent Mentor business
Her book - Mentoring New Parents at Work and a realisation that dads weren’t part of the conversation.
“I mean, it sounds obvious talking to you too now, but you know, it was quite revelation at the time.”
13:45 A pivotal moment using a mountain top image as part of icebreaker cards
“He held the card up and he says this was me. And I used to go mountain climbing, cycling, you know, the world was my oyster and I don't know where he is anymore.”
And he literally broke down in the session, and I said to my client afterwards, I said, if you are in any doubt about the power of what you're doing, it's in the room right now. We have to talk to dads too.
14:30 The danger of grouping parents as a single homogeneous group
15:30 The Dad Connect programme
16:15 Mentoring v Coaching
18:50 We talk about reverse mentoring
21:45 “Good enough is good enough”
23:30 Work Life Balance
“It took me to have children to respect my work-life balance and to want work flexibly. Why do we give away all that discretionary time? And why does that have to be a parenting thing to want to work flexibly?
So I think in a way the pandemic has given everyone the gift of being able to say, I have a right to a life away from work”
24:00 Hybrid working and the role of line managers
25:50 Incoming culture clash - “working from home is an aberration” ?
26:30 Will there be a generational split about office working?
28:30 The mechanics of hybrid working models
Tips
James’ choose to challenge on parenting norms
Nicki talks about checking in on a new dad back from paternity leave
Ian has been reading Why we sleep? by Matthew Walker
——————————————————————————-
Connect with Nicki
Photo Credit @kellysikkema via Unsplash
Time to ponder… what colour are you today and why?
Ep 30 of Lockdown Dads - connecting with your kids, empathy and understanding the transition between work and home life.
Time to ponder… what colour are you today and why?
I saw something on Twitter yesterday that caught my eye...
No, it wasn't a debate about vaccinations or covid competency.
It was a woman posting about home schooling, she reflected that having the kids at home and trying to work at the same time meant the days were simultaneously both too long and too short.
I love my kids but I'd love them to be at school, learning and playing there instead of being at home endlessly defining my life by their various needs, time tables, times tables and not accepting a ham sandwich or pot noodle "a la desk" is a proper lunch.
The result is a long day that never seems long enough to "get stuff done", but long enough and disrupted enough to feel exhausted at 9:30pm and making progress on work projects is like wading through treacle. It's no wonder I haven't done my tax return yet...
But there are always positives, every Friday James Millar and I jump on Zoom and have a 40 minute chat with a new and interesting guest for the Lockdown Dads podcast. It feels like our own TFI Friday moment, plus we get to learn and share ideas with great people with something to say.
Paul Bulos, Executive, Leadership & Wellbeing Coach and publishing professional joins us to ponder “what colour are you today and why?” We dig into the benefits of lockdowns - including connecting with your kids and we touch on the importance of empathy and understanding the transition between work and home life.
Plus we discuss dad ‘presence’ - how important is secondary school transition, what does the “right train” mean to you and taking time to involve yourself in the things that are important to your children.
Tips include - it’s time for clippers, the Language of gaming and Rachel Vecht’s Circle of Control .
Contents
00:20 Lockdown birthdays are rubbish.
02:30 If you could describe how you are doing as a colour, what would that colour be and why?
02:45 Paul’s Funday Friday - energy and weather = yellow
03:15 Ian, green for Pakistan - ODI cricket tickets for the summer
04:20 James = black… I like black
07:40 Learning self awareness and family dynamics
09:15 Paul’s relationship with his daughter
Photo Credit: @lajaxx via Unsplash
I've always been really close to my kids, but I've got a lot closer and some of that's good and some of that's not so good… one of the key things that really came through that first lockdown, was my relationship with my daughter. She started 13, went into being 14. That's quite an age for young females, lots going on, lots changing. I noticed a lot changing. And just before the lockdown, I was being very honest about it, finding quite difficult.
Our connections seem to be drifting a little bit where we'd been really close before we'd done a lot of things together. She sort of flipped into that proper teenage time and she was beginning to just drift away a bit.
And then we started doing this walk, we live in West London, so we started walking to Osterley Park very early. We didn't often say that much to each other, but the content of what we started to talk about between us was, far more meaningful than they'd ever been. I think we just started to reconnect, but in a different way.
12:25 Helping children to feel safe
14:05 A higher proportion proportion of dads think that the switch to secondary school is a time when they need to be around for their kids.
15:00 How comfortable are you saying, “you know what, I can't make that meeting at 5:30” because if I don't do that, I can't get the train, which means I won't be home for my kids.
15:50 You come home one day and, and they don't come to the door. And I said, no, I can't imagine that.
17:00 The impact of missing your train - my wife knew exactly what time I'd be walking through the door at the end of the working day.
19:30 The transition between work - coming home and re-entry into domestic, household and parenting life.
One of the other things that I found quite interesting is that the children, for first time, in their life really, have seen me working, seeing what that means, what that looks like. If I ever came home from work and I was particularly preoccupied or had a difficult day, they, they never really grasped the concept of that. But now that we're around each other so much more, we have conversations in the day, much more readily around what's going on.
Vice versa for their school day. Some of the things that they're doing and getting up to and how their, some of their stresses and strains, you know, when they've had a frustrating lesson or when you know, they feel like they haven't really been heard in their lesson.
I wouldn't normally hear that stuff, but now I'm hearing it much more regularly. So we're relating in a very different way and understanding and appreciating and having more empathy for each other in a very different way.
21:50 James talks about his workingdads.co.uk building back better agenda.
23:00 Lunchtimes together.
24:00 The power of coaching - examining values and my responsibilities as a parent
25:30 Children as they've become far more cognitive in the world and they've got their own things, you really have to listen to them.
They've got something to say now, whereas when they're little, they're just looking at you almost to repeat what they need to say, but as they've grown up I think probably post 10, 11, they've really got something to say and it's worth listening to.
The speaking is his understanding that he's being listened to. And that requires reflection back to him, all those kinds of things.
27:00 My Daughter has helped me as a coach
One of the important things of being a coach is being able to be in the quiet and be comfortable in that quiet space and allowing that space, not feeling you need to fill it, not feeling you need to rescue, but providing your coachee with that. My daughter is quite quiet and thoughtful and her feelings are quite deep. They don't come to the surface. She doesn't wear a heart on her sleeve. So she's actually helped me in my coaching practice because I have to sit with that space a lot more than I do with my son.
28:30 Tips
Home haircuts - clippers are back on stock
Try to understand the language of gaming.
So I remember when he used to collect Pokemon cards, I would walk with him and he would talk to me and I literally didn't understand a single word he said, and and it's now happening with Fortnite. So I have now invested in the time to say to him, could you just explain what you're talking about? Because I realized this could go on a while. I can't have conversations with him that I really don't understand for any longer.
Rachel Vecht’s Circle of Control. (former guest on the show)
More from Paul Bulos
https://www.linkedin.com/in/paulbulos/
http://www.thecompletecoach.co.uk/safe/
https://www.workingdads.co.uk/sink-swim-vital-dads-look-after-themselves/
Photo Credit: @patrickian4 via Unsplash
How Can You get the help and support you need?
Every journey begins with a single step and fixing your work life balance is no exception
I received this message via LinkedIn last week.
"I've been following with interest your Inspiring Dads work. It has been niggling me for a long time now, and I find myself working away from home in a sadly average job and then feeling like a bit of a spare part at the weekend. I am monumentally unable to discuss any of this with anyone and, quite simply, I need some help."
To massacre a famous quote "every journey begins with a single step" and I know it takes courage and determination to reach out to someone for help.
Early interventions in the form of coaching, mentoring and dad to dad community initiatives have the power to transform the experience of working dads and that can only be a good thing for everyone.
But it can be hard to take that first step. in the video below the Music Football Fatherhood team discuss mental health in another of their #Daddydebates.
It's a valuable 20 mins discussion about the need for dads to access support but also the barriers to engaging with mental health and well being support.
It's well worth a watch.
It's always a pleasure to know the impact you have had on your client's lives...
I've been going back through my testimonials and sifting for gold and this nugget from Dan stuck me as important.
"the way I approach many aspects in my work life"
Coaching is never just about the desired outcome. Dan wanted a new job and we worked together to achieve that goal, but the impact of coaching went beyond that into broader behavioural change, the type of change that stays with you long after the new job honeymoon is over.
You can read what he said below:
Whether you need help with work life balance, getting a new job or just understanding how best to focus your energy and drive then I can help you.
Find out more about my 1 to 1 coaching options click here:
https://www.inspiringdads.co.uk/private-1-2-1-coaching
You can book a free call too. In fact i don't let anyone sign up without a chat first.
Ian Dinwiddy, Founder
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