Coaching Sports and Dealing with Parents

When dealing with a child’s parents of any sport, it’s a touchy situation. You want to encourage the parents to be involved in their son’s or daughter’s sports activities. Naturally, parents are concerned about their child’s well being and want what’s best for their child but, when parents undermined a coaches’ authority, it tends to be a problem in most cases. I’ve witness first hand, parents in the stands yelling at their child and giving them instructions, while the coach is instructing the player to do a different task. This can get the child confused, embarrassed, or angry. This can lead to confusion on what to do on the court resulting on a mistake because he or she was thinking instead of just playing and having fun.

Here is a list of techniques you can use for handling parents:
• Before the start of the first practice, set up a parent meeting. If you have assistant coaches, have them attend also. Be prepared; think before hand of what you’re going to talk about. Make flash cards with notes and include this information with your assistant coaches.

• The meeting starts with an introduction of yourself and your assistant coaches. You want to talk a little bit about yourself. This is a good way the parents can get to know something about you. They may be able to relate to something you said. The most important thing to remember is to be your self and be honest.

1. The first thing you want to talk about is your occupation.
2. Coaching credentials- How many years you’ve been coaching and were you coached.
3. What are your interests besides coaching? - Spending time with the family, hiking, going to thern movies, etc.

4. Why you’re coaching? – Passion for the game, helping kids reach their potential, teaching kids the fundamentals and playing the right way.

5. You also want to talk about Rules you have for the team. Talk about what will be expected from the players and parents. Here’s a great opportunity to explain your rules regarding parent conduct. This can be the chance to let them know not to shout directions to their child during the game. Yelling at the officials and the opposing team is not accepted. Encourage parents to be positive, praise their child for a good play and encourage them when they make mistakes.

6. Philosophy and priorities – Emphasize on fairness to each player depending on practice attendance.
Do you emphasize on teaching the fundamentals? What are your goals for this upcoming season? Are you a defensive minded coach? Give them an idea of what is important to you and what you want to teach the players.

7. Encourage parents to come to practices – Let parents see how you run your team, show them how you interact with players, how you critique, and make decisions who gets playing time. Most importantly, they begin to buy into your philosophy. They get to know why you make certain decisions on the court.

8. Get parents involved – Ask parents if they would like to volunteer. You can never have to much help; maybe you need an assistant coach or coaches? Ask if someone would like to be team parent, score keeper, etc. This is a great way for parents to feel they are contributing and connected to the team.

9. Let parents ask questions – This can be a short Q&A about 5 to 10 minutes. Have one of your assistants take notes of the questions being asked. This way, if you’re running out of time or you don’t have the information to answer the question, you can get back to them on a later date.

10. Give out handouts – Medical consent form, rules and conduct forms. Give out you’re information so they can reach you if they have any questions. This can have your name, phone number, cell number and e-mail address.

• At the end of the meeting – Thank the parents for attending. Encourage them to discuss any questions or concerns they might have with you. Keep the lines of communications open. Most important is listen to them, let them know you hear them.

Keep on playing!
Alex Burciaga