Dropping your kids off to the soccer field and watching them play can be a joy for a lot of parents. Seeing your kids score goals, smile, interacting with their peers, can bring joy to your heart. That physical support from parents, gives children an extra boost of confidence and encourage them to keep trying. This is one of several ways whereby a parent-child relationship grows.
Often times, a parent-coach relationship can be neglected and/or overlooked. Knowing who is the coach of your child’s team is one thing. But, getting to know your child’s coach is completely different.
One way to build a relationship with your child’s coach is by asking specific questions. After observation during practices and/or games over a period of time, you can keep a journal of questions you may want to ask. This will help increase productivity of the meeting between you and the coach. It is very important that you keep your questions specific to your child. Don’t go on a rant about other players. Show the coach you really want to help your child succeed.
After a meeting with the coach, hopefully some actions steps were established. What’s important is that you as a parent, do your part by following through with your end of the agreement. Be sure to do exactly what the coach recommends. After the desired period of time, you can circle back to the coach and you can use bench marks to measure success.
On the flip side, be sincere! You know your child better than anybody else. If you feel something may not work, you should also let the coach know.
Be transparent with your child’s coach and adapt an “honesty is the best policy” approach. If you fail to share your concerns, you will not create that important trust between yourself and the coach; which is important in building the relationship. There is a fine line with being honest and expressing how you feel vs telling the coach what he/she should do. Remember you are not the coach and you are not the coaches boss. The goal here is to show the coach that you are genuine and to understand his coaching philosophy.
In closing, have the courage to seek help if needed. Ask the coach for advice if/when needed. It can be a simple request for support, more information about something already discussed or more time to make a decision. However, don’t be that parent that runs to the coach and complains about every and anything. The last thing you want to do, is push away the coach.
These are just a few ways to establish a relationship with your child’s coach. Relationships take a very long time to build, but can be destroyed in a heartbeat. Take a devil’s advocate approach to somethings. While others, would be pretty straight forward.
Comments are closed.
