The role of a Parent Coach "not that easy"

Youth sports thrive on parent coaches. Parents of players make up 90% of all youth sports coaches. Parents have a unique relationship with their own children, and when it comes to coaching your child's team, it is not easy to separate being the parent from being the coach. Having CoachThem as a product takes 50% of the stress away by letting you prepare for practice plans and organize your team's development.

However, there is such a thing as too much involvement, and it is possible that in the unique environment of youth sports, having a dad or mom as a coach can push parental involvement to create a negative experience for the child athlete.

Negative aspects of having a parent as the coach can be the feeling of pressure and higher expectations, being subject to unfair behaviour and more criticism for mistakes, being on the receiving end of the coach's anger, and feeling that the parent coach lacks empathy and understanding of the son or daughter's perspective.

Parent coaches viewed themselves as placing more pressure and higher expectations on their own kids. At the same time, they gave more recognition to other players.

My brother-in-law, a former NHL player, at times feels that it is difficult to separate the role of coach from the role of parent. Parents in many cases are much harder on and critical of their own kids, mostly due to the perception of the other parents and teammates, trying to separate favouritism, but are in fact doing more damage to their own child's development and/or relationship.

 

 

Understanding the negatives and some of the challenges of being a parent coach is extremely important to having a successful and a healthy team. There are many positive aspects perceived by both parents and their children that are supportive of the parent-coach/child-athlete relationship, including being able to spend quality time together.

It's also an opportunity to teach values and skills, to see how their child interacts with friends, and to see their child's accomplishments and take pride in them.

Having success comes from being prepared and organized, which CoachThem provides. Having smiles and the love for the game you play comes from positive coaching and a healthy environment while having fun.

 

 

Written by Robb Tallas and the CoachThem Team

 

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