This article was recently forwarded to us and comes from attackstylewrestling.com...
Every year wrestlers of all ages across the country take to
the mat. Weather they are a first year
wrestler or going for a fourth state title one of the goals should be to have a
great experience. With all the ups and
downs a wrestling season can hold a parents and coaches roll can play a tremendous
part in the experience a wrestler will have this year. I came across this article on San Diego
Wrestling
Parents and Coaches I encourage you to read this article
and then come back a couple times this year and re-read.
Parent – Coach Conversations
During a youth sports season, your children will spend more
time with their coaches than with any other adults, except you, their parents.
On some days, coaches’ time with your kids will even exceed your own. It’s
important that you as a Responsible Sport Parent have a completely open,
honest, trusting relationship with your children’s coaches. Here are a few ways
to help bring about a quality parent-coach partnership.
Prepare Your Children to Work Well
With Coaches.
In addition to the basic manners and respect that makes for
functional families and schoolrooms, remind your children that their coaches
are in a unique position. Your conversation with your children might include
explaining that their coaches have to work with a lot of different players and
parents, and that means a lot of personality types.
Help your children understand that the best way for them to
succeed as individuals and to contribute to team success is to cooperate with
the coaches, pay careful attention and try their hardest at every practice and
game. If your children make the coaches’ lives easier, you probably will
enhance your own relationships with the coaches.
Stay Mindful of the Coaches’
Commitment.
Your children’s coaches have made a commitment that involves
many hours of preparation beyond the time spent at practices and games. Quite
likely in youth sports they are volunteers. Almost all are well-meaning.
It will be helpful to use those facts as a prism through
which you view any issues that have you considering a corrective conversation
with the coaches. Finally, if you do feel the need to approach coaches about an
issue, try to imagine yourself in their place – as a volunteer – and that can
help keep your communication with them respectful.
Make Early, Positive Contact with the
Coach.
As soon as you know who will coach your children, contact
those coaches to introduce yourself and offer any assistance you may provide.
This outreach may be the single most important thing you do in establishing a
true partnership, where you proactively shape a positive experience for your
child and lay the foundation for respectful, productive conversations with
coaches should a conflict arise later.
You may want to offer yourself as assistant coach if that is
customary in the organizations where your children compete. At the same time,
be prepared to accept “no” for an answer; some coaches already have assistants
selected. Other roles for which you might volunteer include “team parent”
(responsible for such things as coordinating carpools or snack assignments) or
maintaining a team webpage and online scheduling and communications tools.
Fill the Coach’s Emotional Tank.
Too often, coaches hear only from parents who have
complaints. Filling the coaches’ Emotional Tanks with specific, truthful praise
positively reinforces them to continue doing the things you see as benefiting
the youth athletes.
Key to this communication is “specific and truthful.” It’s
common enough for parents and coaches to mill around after a game, and instead
of the simple, “Great game, coach,” it can do a world of good for the coach,
players and other parents to hear things like, “Coach, we were getting upset
about some of the official’s calls, but when we saw how well you kept your
composure, it helped us calm down, too.”
Don’t Put the Player in the Middle.
You wouldn’t complain to your children about how poorly
their math teacher explains fractions, so hopefully you would avoid sharing
your disapproval of a coach with your children. Doing so may force the child to
take sides, and not necessarily your side!
If your child has an issue with the coach and can maturely
articulate it, encourage your child to approach the coach and at the very least
learn some life lessons in self-advocacy with an authority figure. Otherwise,
if you disapprove of how the coach handles a situation, seek a private meeting
to discuss the matter.
Ideally, such conversations would focus on big-picture
concerns around your child’s ability to have an overall positive experience
with the team. Playing time issues sometimes rise to that level, but in-game
strategies and tactics rarely do.
If you have some expertise in the sport and think you can
help your child’s coach, that’s the sort of thing you might mention in the
“make-early-positive-contact” phase. But if the coach does not seem open to
those sorts of suggestions, it’s best to respect that, because big-picture
concerns about your child taking life lessons from sports do not hinge on the
coach accepting your tactical advice.
Let Coaches Coach.
It can confuse players to hear someone other than the coach
yelling out instructions. Also, your instructions may counter the coaches’
strategy and tactics, undermining team performance.
Fill Your Child’s Emotional Tank.
Competitive sports can be stressful to players. The last
thing they need is your critiquing their performance…on top of what the coach
may deliver and what they already are telling themselves. Let your children
know you love and support them regardless of their performance.
Contribute to a Positive Environment.
Fill all the players’ Emotional Tanks when you see them
doing something well. Honor the Game as a spectator, respecting ROOTS (Rules,
Opponents, Officials, Teammates and Self), and encourage others around you to
Honor the Game.
We know this advice is not always easy to implement. There
will be the occasional disagreeable official’s call or wishes for more playing
time for your child. But drawing from these ideas can help you keep your
child’s youth sports experience in perspective. In turn, that will help you
maintain a positive parent-coach partnership, and that will help the
Responsible Coaches in your children’s lives serve their greatest purpose.
