Great rewards and common pitfalls when coaching your own children in sports

        In the Treasure Valley, parents have countless opportunities to introduce their children to sports, as well as very good reasons to encourage participation.  Whether as part of a team or as an individual, a child’s involvement in sports can help him cultivate a personal commitment to physical fitness and health, learn to set and accomplish goals, and develop problem-solving skills.

        Whether through school or community organizations, children’s sports regularly include an obligation for parental involvement by filling one or more volunteer roles.  In fact, many organizations rely heavily on volunteers in order to exist at all.  This is how some parents find themselves playing a substantial role in the life of their child and his peers—that of coach.

        Tim Brady is the coaches coordinator for the local Optimist Youth Football organization, and coached his own children in sports for 17 years. Both of his kids went on to play at the collegiate level.  Brady says coaching your own child offers a number of benefits, including opportunities to build a stronger relationship with your child, help her develop new skills, and have fun. 

        Brady says there are also significant challenges faced by every parent coach.  And some parents engage in favoritism, while others may seek to become a coach in order to ensure their child gets more playing time and attention. 

        More often, Brady says he sees parents making the same mistake he did.  In his early days of coaching his own children, he realized he was being too critical of their performance.  He says such mistakes have the potential not only to impact a child’s love of the sport and the parent/child relationship, but also the coach’s ability to work with other children on the team, whose confidence in him may be eroded by his unexplainably harsh criticism of a peer.

        Ross Schultz, Executive Director of the Boise Capital Soccer Club and himself a former coach of his own child, says that he made the same mistake of being overly critical of his daughter.  He worried initially that other players and parents were assuming he might engage in favoritism, and he overcompensated.  Eventually his daughter and then his wife noticed his behavior and brought it to his attention.  Schultz says Boise Capital Soccer Club and other volunteer-based organizations regularly offer volunteer training that addresses the parent-as-coach role.

        Brady notes that parents, whether they’re coaches or not, have the opportunity to positively reinforce their child’s participation in sports.  He and other experts agree that one of the most challenging times for a parent of an athlete is the ride home after a game.  This can be a highly emotional time for a child who is elated by a win or frustrated by her own performance or that of the team.  Brady says when he tried to talk to his son about what he thought could have been done differently during a basketball or football game, his son was uncommunicative.   When Brady engaged him in small talk instead, his son was more likely to open up about how he felt about his performance, and they would have a productive conversation. 

         “I thought it was my responsibility and my duty to advise him and tell him what he did right and wrong,” Brady says.  “The problem was I wasn’t letting him learn from his own experience.”

        Both Brady and Schultz are clear about parental involvement from the sidelines of a game.  Cheering might be appropriate.  Admonishing, correcting, or instructing your child during a game is not only discouraging, but could take her mind off the work she has been training to do.

        “Believe me, kids hear their parents yelling from the sidelines,” Schultz says, “and other kids hear those parents, and it takes their concentration away from what they should be doing.”

        Schultz says one of the most poignant moments he witnessed as a coach was when a girl stopped running down the soccer field to address her mother, who had been yelling at her.

        “She stopped and said ‘Mom, when have you ever even played this game?’ That was a moment when everyone quieted down for a moment—they seemed to just get it,” he says.

        Finally, finding a balance between the role of parent and the role of coach is important.  A parent coaching his own child must resist the temptation to treat his child differently than any other member of the team.  Examples include asking your child to assist in keeping time or score, accommodate lineup changes, or keep his feedback or emotions in check any more than any other player. 

        Brady says he strove to maintain this balance by explaining this duality to his children, or as he says, “drawing a line in the sand.”

        “Before a game I would tell them, ‘okay, I am your dad all the time and when I’m out on the field I’m going to be your coach,’” Brady said.

        Since their children have grown, Brady and his wife Kelly have turned their coaching efforts outward, certifying as Parent Coaches and starting You As Parent, a consulting company with services focusing on training sports parents.

Beth Markley is a freelance writer who lives in Boise with her family.  Neither she nor her husband had ever played soccer before volunteering to serve as assistant coaches for their sons’ soccer teams.