by Cassy Dittman,  Michael John O’Keeffe and Steven Rynne

With winter sports swinging into action, adults around the country have volunteered or been volunteered by others (humorously known as being “volun-told”) to coach junior sports teams.

While most coaches are eager to work with children to build their skills, confidence and passion for sport, one aspect of the job that coaches may approach with trepidation is working with parents.

This can be especially difficult for the many coaches who are also parents, as they need to balance dual roles and relationships.

As researchers in sports coaching and family psychology, we know parents play a central role in supporting children’s participation, enjoyment and development in sports.

However, as coaches of junior teams ourselves, we understand that working with parents can be challenging. Indeed, lack of support from parents has been identified as a major reason for coaches deciding not to continue.

Community sports clubs rely on volunteers to coach teams but coaches often receive limited or no training or guidance about how to work effectively with parents.

Our approach is to consider the coach-parent relationship a positive dimension of the job, working together as partners to develop young people through sport.

So, what can coaches do to build strong partnerships with parents?

Help parents feel a part of the team

In the past, most parents had an arm’s length interest in their children’s sports. Today, parents develop social connections via their children’s sports.

Parents build an identity as a “sports parent”, viewing active involvement in their children’s sports as an important part of the parenting role and helping to cultivate their child’s character and development.

As a result, parents are looking for ways to be positively involved but may not be sure what will be most helpful. Some parents may not have the confidence to assist directly with training or games.

As a volunteer coach, you can think of practical ways parents can help and actively invite them to give you a hand in ways that support rather than interfere with your coaching. This might include asking them to assist with setting up and packing up after training, taking turns bringing fruit for halftime or running the player substitutions on and off the field.

For younger children, you can ask parents to assist with “crowd control” at training, keeping younger children on task and listening to the coach. And for older children and teenagers, parents can be asked to keep team statistics and provide input into the player-of-the-day award.

As many leagues don’t keep score, this last suggestion presents an opportunity for teams to focus on things beyond winning or losing – parents might record the number of “touches” each player gets or note “highlights” for each player based on what they worked on in training.

More adventurous teams might work out how players can rate the performance of their parents as spectators.

It helps to view the team you are coaching as an extended team of players and parents. In the same way you would build your relationship with a child by praising and encouraging them for being valuable team players, remember to show your appreciation for parents and family members for their efforts.