Are You Ready To Continue Your Journey
interested in continuing the conversation with me?
Join me for intimate, and in-depth seesions where we feed each others passion for workin with teens and young adults.
I’ll continue to share my decades of experience working with young people in an environment that allows you to learn, adjust and grow.
This is only for people who have completed my practitioner training or one of my online courses.
The magic of a niche...
Do you want a steady stream of clients that are engaged in the coaching process, and motivated to change?
Most coaches want a private practice that leaves them feeling exhilarated at the end of the day, generates steady referrals, and develops a level of expertise and confidence that gains momentum over time.
Across most industries, including coaching, one of the most important elements to creating a thriving practice is to create a niche. If you’ve come to this page, you probably already know this.
It might seem counterintuitive to focus on one type of client rather than focus on all types. That’s how it looked to me.
But it turns out that having a specialized skill sets you apart, provides a competitive edge, and creates a level of competency that builds very quickly.
Why a Little Bit of Three Principles goes a Very Long Way with Teens
The funny thing is when I started working with teens, it wasn't intentional. At 27 I joined a private practice group of colleagues in their 50's. Somehow our teen clients were comfortable talking to me. I looked like I was 13 so I figured it was age-related.
But I was fresh out of grad school and had never sat in front of a client.
However, I'd caught glimpses of my own innate health. And if you’re reading this, I’m guessing you have too.
What I’d seen for myself was that even though I looked and felt broken and sick, I had just as much access to wisdom and resilience as everyone else.
So if that was true for me, it had to be true for any client, including all troubled teens. That faith and reassurance was all I had, and it was enough.
With barely any experience, I was seeing these tormented young people quiet down, get open, and get reflective. And they started finding their own clarity, common sense, and perspective. It was magic. It was like opening a jar that someone had loosened already. And I was hooked.
Just under the surface, teens are so open, ready to trust, and willing to consider anything. So a relatively small dose of the Three Principles carries the potential for a level of faith, relief, and reassurance that clears their heads, refreshes their outlook, and re-boots their system.
Ultimately, the reason teens were comfortable with me was not my age or how young I looked. They relaxed around me because I was certain they had just as much wisdom, common sense, and resilience as adults.
I talked to them and treated them like fully capable, fully intact pre-adults. We might be the only people in their lives that see them that way.
And that's one of the pillars of this program and my work as a whole.
"Erika will share her ninja level understanding related to parenting all based in the understanding of the Three Principles.
She has been an amazing resource for Angus and myself as well as our girls. She is smart, funny, and ruthless when it comes to trusting the innate wisdom within to flourish in your kids"
Rohini and Angus Ross
'Rewilding Love' podcast
Why I Think Everyone
Should Work With Teens
Am I biased? Completely. I think everyone should work with teens and young adults.
In 23 years of full-time coaching, my work with teen clients has been nonstop exciting, real, refreshing, and gratifying to the point that I have more energy at the end of the day than I had at the beginning. The vitality, hope, and openness that happens when they change is simply contagious.
But more than that, when I started focusing on the same kinds of clients, I became fluent in that world. I developed a depth and level of understanding that created confidence, competence, insight, and reassurance in me, which flowed down to my young clients and their parents.
What I also found was that my client work took a quantum leap because I developed the eyes for nuance because I was immersed in the world of young people. My listening became fine-tuned. I picked up on things earlier in our conversations and started seeing progress and impact sooner.
And all those things empowered the rest of my client work. The work I do with other types of clients improved because the more depth and understanding I found, the more insight I had about humanity, not just teens.
Depth is funny like that. Somehow with depth comes breadth.
So if you want to add a discriminator and competitive edge, and pivot to another area of focus down the line, you can. It’s another tool in the toolbox.
Why bringing a Three Principles perspective to a struggling teen is so powerful
The number of teens and young adults that are struggling and looking for help is rising fast. There’s already a shortage of providers that help teens. And of those providers, like in any industry, the skill level is hit and miss.
There’s nobody more motivated, grateful, and open than a struggling young person that finds someone to talk to that truly listens and truly cares.
And because the parents of struggling teens are often frantic, scared, and insecure, you become the answer to their problem, the source of their hope, relief, and mental health.
When you’re a resource for adults, they typically have friends, a colleague, sibling, or partner they can turn to. But when you’re a resource for a young person, chances are you’re the only person they can trust that’s in their corner.
Teens generally say their parents can’t help them because they’re distracted, freaked out, or intrusive. Or they’re part of the problem. They can’t go to their friends for help because they don’t want to be seen as a downer, as weird or unstable, or they’re afraid their friends will tell people.
Most teens are typically getting through things without anyone.
For me, the feeling of being that one person in someone’s corner is the reason I started on this career path. You’ll feel it, and so will the parents. You’re an answer in a sea of problems. And you see health and hope where everyone else (including themselves) sees dysfunction and mess.
So the appreciation is there. People don’t always pay to help themselves, but they’ll move mountains to help their kids. It’s a problem they desperately want to fix, and the one thing they can’t fix themselves. It’s like having your hands tied behind your back. Helping one teen changes so many lives, including yours.
How will I know if working with teens is a good specialty area for me?
Explore it. Try it out. It takes relatively little training and experience in one specific area of an industry to gain a competitive edge over all the non-specialized providers out there.
After some learning and a handful of teen or young adult clients, your learning and experience will start to set you apart from everyone else. And that will continue to build.
Associate your name with that area and a reputation will follow. Over time you’ll see if that niche will become a steady source of income, a way of opening doors should you explore interests down the line, or the discovery of a true calling the way I’ve found.
What you can Expect from this Program
This will be an intimate group, with in-depth conversations, realisations and a supporting community, with continued access to the Facebook group to share with me and fellow participants.
Delivery is 100% online so you can join from wherever you are in the world. And just dial in if you can’t come in person.
I'm looking forward to deepening this connection, and looking for ways to expand our understanding, all while working towards our goal of building happy and susatinable relationships with teens and young adults.
Add another level to your training, with continued support from me and your peers.
Share insights, support others and gain confidence in your own abilities.
What's included:
4-month mentoring program:
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Eight 1-hour Individual Mentoring calls (2/month) VALUE $3000
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1 x Review of client session recordings VALUE $300
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Quarterly Practitioner Calls VALUE $500
~ $3900 total retail value~
6 month mentoring program:
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12 one-hour Individual Mentoring calls (2/month) VALUE $3000
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1 x Review of client session recordings VALUE $300
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Quarterly Practitioner Calls VALUE $500
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4-Session Mentoring Package - 1-hour individual calls VALUE $1500
~ $3900 total retail value~
"Erika Bugbee is the teen whisperer.
She’s also the 'parents-of-teens' whisperer.
Erika works with teens and their parents in ways that look like magic, but are deceptively simple and full of common sense. She talks about how understanding what a teen’s inner life is like–even just a little bit–can make a gigantic difference in the quality of your interactions.
You will love this conversation. Listen lightly, but listen for the depth and the feeling in how Erika speaks. It almost sounds too simple to actually work, but if you saw the impact she has with her clients you’d know that you were hearing truth.”
Dr Amy Johsnon, author of The Little Book of Big Change
The Structure
I will be your personal coach and mentor during our time together.
The individual sessions will give you a space to stop, get in a reflective space, ask questions, and fully integrate what you're learning.
Often when we learn or see something new and powerful, we tend to jump back into doing life without really giving our insights space to breathe and unfold. This is where the insights you learn from this program have a chance to shine new light across all areas of your life -- in your work, your home life, your parenting, your relationships.
Here's what we might discuss on our calls:
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Providing structure in the sessions, and in the coaching process as a whole
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Using teen-friendly language
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Getting buy-in, support, and trust from parents
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Handling parent expectations
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Exploring the most common topics teens bring up in sessions
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Exploring the most common topics parents bring up in sessions
But each session is unique, and we'll often discuss what is live for us at that moment in time.
No two calls are the same, and we'll have a total of 8 whole hours to dive deeper into the relationship we have with working with teens or young adults, or navigating the relationships of the teens in our own lives.
About Erika
Erika Bugbee, M.A. is the founder of Erika Bugbee Coaching Group outside Seattle, Washington. She specializes in teens, young adults, and parents, and practitioner training and mentoring through private video-call programs and 4-day face-to-face immersion programs.
Erika also works with individuals and couples and is a frequent international webinar and conference presenter. Erika has spent 23 years helping people individually, facilitating programs, and teaching groups in organizations that include BAE Systems, Adams Outdoor Advertising, Island Hospital, Kids4Kids, and the University of Washington Mental Health Center.
As the daughter of Three Principles practitioners and pioneers Dr. George and Linda Pransky, Erika grew up learning the Three Principles and ultimately became a partner at Pransky and Associates where she worked for 18 years.
She co-founded the company’s Online Learning Division creating online courses that teach the Three Principles from the ground-up for the public. Currently these courses have reached 32 countries and continue to spread.
Erika earned both her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in psychology through University of Oregon and City University, respectively. She lives with her husband of 23 years, their two teenagers, and two dogs.
FAQs
Frequently Asked Questions
I've been through the practitioner program but I haven't had much real world experience with teens, and frankly I find myself a bit uncomfortable, awkward or nervous even being around them at family gatherings. Is that a problem? Does it mean I'm not cut out to work with them?
Doesn’t matter. If you're ok with being a little clumsy when you learn new things, the nerves will fall away with a little time. We’re not good at most things when we first start out. If you focus and stick with something, and keep building experience, in a relatively short time your strengths, confidence, and competence will naturally emerge.
I still get nervous or awkward periodically with a new client, often when they're nervous themselves. But within the first session or two, usually within the first 30 minutes, I have a few moments where I feel a connection to them, I warm up to them, or see something endearing or interesting about them, and the tension disappears.
What if I don’t have kids, or I only have younger kids?
Having kids yourself doesn't give you any advantage in working with them. Maybe someone with teens is more familiar with their world and daily lives. However, those of us with kids have the disadvantage of having our own fears, worries, and biases that we have to keep in check when we talk to young people.
You were a teen yourself, with teens all around you, so your ability to relate and see life through their eyes is not a stretch at all.
Yet more importantly, you're a human being that gets caught in overwhelm, insecurity, or the feeling that you're in it alone. Just like your adult clients. It feels real no matter what the details look like. And when you get your bearings back, you find your way again. So when you strip it down, we're all going through the same thing. As long as you're human, you're more than qualified to help anyone that walks through your door.
What if I'm not sure if I want to work with teenagers anymore?
This program and type of work isn't for everyone, and it may not be for you. While it might be a potential income stream, give you a competitive edge, or maybe you already have potential young clients coming to you for help, having a genuine feeling of affinity, interest, and goodwill is a must-have as a helping professional. And compared to adults, teens do have a reputation for being less pleasant on the outside when you see them in public.
But in my experience, the ones that tend to come to us for help are either open and friendly up front, or are withdrawn or reserved in a way that's surprisingly skin-deep. If you're someone that WANTS to like teenagers, and willing to hang in there and get to know the one that's right in front of you, this is an area worth considering.
I need help with a specific aspect of working with teens - can this program help
That's exactly what the mentoring sessions are for. Bring to the table anything you're struggling with and we can address those questions together.
In fact some participants in this program will likely be drawn to working only with parents, and not the teens themselves. The more insight you have around seeing teens through the lense of the Three Principles, the more you can bring that insight to parents and provide the confidence, faith, and reassurance they're looking for.
And for those practitioners who want to work primarily with teens and not parents, you'll still be interacting with the parents to set up and pay for the sessions, and you need their to trust and support what you're doing. Understanding a few key elements in managing parent relationships will help you get the cooperation and buy-in from parents that makes them true allies.
I haven't completed your practitioner training, can I still do this mentoring program?
This program is exclusively for those that have been through either my practitioner program, or one of my online courses. There is a level of expectation that you have completed Three Principles training in the area of working with teens.
If you are intestered in the practitioner program, you can find out more about that here.