Learning coach Fabian Grolimund: «I wasn't a model student»

Mr Grolimund, you run the Academy for Learning Coaching, where you teach children how best to do their homework, among other things. Have we now reached the point where even schoolchildren need a coach?

We are not primarily addressing the children, but the parents. Many parents are desperate because they have daily arguments with their children about homework. It often starts with children with learning difficulties or ADHD suffering from the pressure and losing motivation. They are depressed, complain of stomach ache, hardly sleep before exams. Parents want to change the situation and often resort to unhelpful measures due to a lack of expertise. They put additional pressure on the child and urge them to practise even more.

Practising is not always the wrong strategy.

When children in primary school spend two hours a day agonising over their homework, it rarely leads to good results. Some children today have a daily routine that is almost as tight as that of managers in the boardroom. Many free and recreational spaces have been lost, children and parents are under pressure.

Is this a recent development?

Yes, on the one hand it has to do with the smaller families. My grandparents had six children, they couldn't look after each one as intensively as they do today in small families. Children learnt to organise themselves better, they took on more responsibility and at the same time had more freedom. On the other hand, the importance of a good school-leaving certificate is very high today. Many parents have the feeling that the course for later success is already set in primary school and that their child cannot afford any weaknesses. The pressure to study and parents' fears about the future have clearly increased. Today, 90 per cent of parents interfere with homework, which leads to conflicts in many families and puts a strain on the parent-child relationship.

As a learning coach, there is little you can do to change this.

The general conditions are indeed a challenge. This includes the fact that children are much more distracted by entertainment than they used to be. My mum used to look forward to doing her homework because she didn't have to help with the housework during this time. Today, many schoolchildren find it difficult to put computer games and smartphones aside for a while.

How do you contribute to a better learning environment?

By sensitising and supporting parents. This includes relativising fears about the future and demonstrating how permeable our education system is, how many opportunities there are, for example, to supplement an apprenticeship with a vocational baccalaureate or to continue one's education after initial training. The aim is to enable parents to cushion the impact of failure instead of putting additional pressure on them out of fear. On the other hand, we want to show parents what effective help looks like. How they can guide their child towards independent learning and reduce conflicts. One cornerstone is our free online course, which around 30,000 parents have signed up for. Here we provide practical recommendations on how parents can best support their children - always with the aim of ensuring that children have a positive experience of learning and become mentally strong.

How did you come up with the idea of setting up your own business with the Academy for Learning Coaching straight after studying psychology?

The decisive factor was the desire to be able to tackle something new and meaningful every day in a self-determined way. I already found studying psychology to be very theoretical. So while I was still studying, I set up a counselling service for students with exam nerves and evaluated it as part of my final thesis. I soon received the first enquiries from schools and parents. I interpreted this as a good omen, took on a 50 per cent position at the university and euphorically embarked on the adventure of self-employment.

Did it work straight away?

Nothing worked at all. It took five years before I made a profit for the first time. I made every conceivable mistake: right at the beginning, I rented space in a practice, which meant that I had high fixed costs to begin with. Then I produced a dreadful flyer, a wasteland of text without any graphic elements, distributed it around the city and waited for calls and emails that never arrived. In the end, my colleague and I organised a kind of roadshow, four initial presentations on the subject of homework at primary schools for teachers and parents. Nobody turned up on the first evening, one person on the second, five people on the third and nobody again on the fourth. We processed such experiences with the frustration beer ritual: we ordered a large beer in the pub and moaned until it was drunk. Afterwards, we would encourage each other and meet up the next day just to talk about what we could do better.

How did your colleagues and your wife react to the ongoing failure?

My wife has always supported my decision. She is also self-employed and gives painting and drawing courses. Freedom was always more important to us than comfort. We were convinced that if we followed our passion, sooner or later we would be able to make a good living from it - and until then, we could get by on very little. That came at a price. Until my 31st birthday, I lived with my wife in a one-room studio with a kitchenette, dining area and sleeping area. Sometimes I had the feeling that many of my fellow students were passing me by while I bumbled along and just didn't want to realise that I had lost my way. But basically, I was convinced that the demand existed and that I just hadn't found the right form for my offers yet.

What has happened after five years?

The breakthrough came suddenly in 2012. My book «Learning with children» was published, we had a new website and had produced our own short films together with the parents' magazine «Fritz + Fränzi». It was as if the wind had changed and many things were now effortless. But we had previously needed a lot of perseverance and had learnt not to take rejections personally. I had a list of 20 potential publishers for the book. When I received the 20th rejection, I started all over again and insisted with my favourite publisher until he actually looked at the manuscript and gave it to his wife, who was a teacher, to read. That's when he decided to take the risk and publish my first book.

You seem very introverted and shy. Have you become a good salesperson through your self-employment?

No, that doesn't suit me at all. But there is not only the loud push marketing strategy, but also the opportunity to draw attention to yourself with good content. In our case, this meant making a lot of knowledge available for free on the website and sharing the content via social media channels. As a result, more and more people approached us, including schools that wanted to organise events with us. The seminars for parents and professionals are now going so well that my colleague Stefanie Rietzler and I run the academy full-time and we can employ two secretaries. My working days are now exactly as I always wanted them to be. I spend around 60 per cent of my working time in cafés, writing books and articles, preparing seminars and lectures and doing office work. My wife and I have all the freedom we need to live at our own pace and share the care of our pre-school children without having to coordinate with an employer.

Were you actually a good student?

I was a very dreamy child. Fortunately, I was given an extra year for kindergarten. Nevertheless, I completely refused to go to school at the beginning and didn't read a single letter. Looking back, I am very grateful that my teacher at the time, a very warm-hearted woman, reassured my parents by saying that it wasn't a catastrophe, that I was attentive, but that my expression was still blocked. During my time at school, there were always situations like this where I was very dependent on the support of my parents or teachers. I wasn't one of those children who would have made it one way or another. Maybe that's why it's so important to me to help parents and teachers fulfil their supportive role even better.

Read more:
Fabian Grolimund writes regularly for the Swiss parents' magazine Fritz+Fränzi. Subscribe toour magazineand make sure you don't miss any of his articles.
To Fabian Grolimund's learning coaching offer:
www.mit-kindern-lernen.ch or www.facebook.com/mitkindernlernen