Successful Coaching Demands Boundaries

Academic coaches often find it challenging to maintain clear boundaries between their work and related areas such as advising, therapy, targeted counseling such as for ADHD, and training. Students may ask advising questions, disclose diagnoses, and exhibit challenges to their college performance that have causes lying outside the purview of an academic coach.

Even as an academic coach cannot appropriately fulfill the responsibilities of these other roles, at the same time, academic coaching specifically focuses on the whole student. In this sense, all that is happening with a student walks into the coaching session with that student and is a part of the conversation.

How can we be true to the whole student yet maintain appropriate boundaries in our work?

One key answer to this question is to center questions, not prescriptions. While it is appropriate for an advisor to indicate a certain action to be taken, for example, or for a therapist to prescribe a strategy, the academic coach's aim is to ask questions that empower the student to determine their own prescription. Such questions can embrace all that the student brings to the table, yet avoid directives that cross the boundary and go beyond coaching.

Here are some examples of effective coaching question responses to common situations.

• A student asks a question about pre-requisites for a course: "What online resource can help you find this information?" "Whom could you consult who could help you answer the question?" 

• A student self-identifies as having ADHD and is struggling with focus: "What helps you focus, in general? What hinders your focus? Out of the strategies you know of, which would you be willing to try? With what type of coursework is your ADHD most challenging?" 

• A student discloses a diagnosis of a mood disorder: "What kind of support do you have for this challenge? When is this most problematic in your week? What consequence of this disorder is most disruptive to your coursework? What self-care habit might help you feel better and free up energy for learning?" 

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