Some parents fully embrace the idea of coaching their own child. Others decide it’s best to stay in the parenting lane. And a few get pressed into service, or the sport just won’t have a season. A community that offers many sports with teams at all age levels needs more coaches. Many parents volunteer to coach, especially at the lower age levels.

I was comfortable coaching my daughters and their third- and fourth-grade classmates for city recreation. My straightforward task was to introduce them to the game and teach them how to execute fundamental skills. We met for just one hour on 10 Saturday mornings in the winter. I was excited for the opportunity to share what I knew, and to be a female role model at a time when most volunteers were dads. But that’s where my coaching started and ended.

I knew I had no business coaching middle school games. 

With a husband and father who worked as physical education teachers and coaches, I understood there was a lot more to coaching (teaching) children than I was trained for. I didn’t know enough about how to teach the strategies of the game, let alone how to teach young human beings who were going through the rocky years of becoming a teen.

And while our daughters seemed to do fine with their dad as an elementary school physical education teacher, I was glad he did not coach them.

Having gone through junior high as the principal’s daughter, I know I would not have enjoyed playing basketball near as much if my dad had also been my coach. I think he knew that. And it was probably true for my brothers as well.

Dad stepped out of his coaching role during the years we played so he could enjoy watching as a parent. With one of us playing on a high school team and another on a junior high team, adding a third schedule of his own team would have meant he’d rarely see us play.

I’m glad my dad chose to be a parent in the bleachers.

Dad sat quietly at our games and said little about them at home. He attended as many as his schedule allowed and always advised us to have fun. We knew he cared about us and the game of basketball. As an adult, I understood how much. 

He knew there were lessons we could learn from other coaches, from navigating our own experiences, without a parent’s involvement.  

Dad was always respectful of our coaches and expected us to be as well. They may have had different philosophies and strategies than he would have used, but it was always clear to us that our coach was in charge. 

Not coaching us was a gift to us and himself. We got to see our dad in a supportive role that taught us to respect our coaches and other leaders. He got to enjoy watching his children as we learned the game and played with our teammates. And he was also a role model for other sports parents, if they were watching.

If you want to coach your child …

That doesn’t mean that no one should coach their own child. Some do so quite well. And sometimes it works for everyone involved. The key, as Larry Lauer, PhD shares in this article Should I Coach my Child?  is giving a lot of thought to your role as a coach and being very clear about your and your child’s role on the team and at home. He offers some excellent questions to help parents get started. 

For parents who want to become coach-teachers, there are some great organizations with resources to help them do the job well. There are many resources for sports parents as well. I know what it’s like to be a busy parent, so I’ve started to round them up for you.

Check out the new Resources page on my website*. These are all nonprofit organizations working for safe, age-appropriate, positive youth sports experiences.

 Who knows? You may get inspired to be part of the reinvention of youth sports.  

Read more

Should I Coach My Child?, Larry Lauer, PhD, Association for Applied Sports Psychology

6 Things to do When Coaching Your Own Child, TrueSport

Lessons from the driveway—Reinventing Youth Sports, Christine Hawkinson

Resources at christinehawkinson.com

* I am an affiliate for bookshop.org which gives me a place to gather all the books I’ve mentioned in my blog and others that may be of interest. I will earn 10% of any sales from my storefront—or you can support your favorite local bookstore by selecting theirs.

Photo by Adria Crehuet Cano on Unsplash