Helping Athletes with an Out of Control Parent
It is a delicate situation stepping into the middle of the relationship between parents and their child. Parents don’t want to hear a coach tell them how to parent. And no matter how tough the situation is for an athlete, they don’t want to hear a coach criticizing Mom or Dad.
While parents may feel like they are only trying to help their child to become a better player, the parent can sometimes choke any fun out of the sports experience for their child.
The overbearing parent who needs to yell instructions during the game may only create confusion and errors in their child. The parent who wants to “go over the game” and give corrections may create stress or create questions about their coach. The parent who pushes the player to “get a scholarship” can put unbearable pressure.
Unfortunately all of us have seen a player who is just getting buried with the stress of a dynamics parent. How have you tried to help a player who has a parent who is overbearing?
Diane Lichtenberg- Bettendorf
One of the first things that I do with all the parents is to go over expectations. We have a parent meeting at the beginning of the season. I have a handbook that I go over. It lays out the expectations of the coaches, the players, and the parents.
I also would put out a weekly email to the parents, communicating what was happening during the week as far as game times, special events, reminders, etc. If there were any general issues that were going on, I would address those as a group.
If a player had an issue they would like to discuss, the rule was that they would speak with me first. If there was still a problem after that, I would be willing to set up an appointment with the parent, the athlete, and the athletic director.
I did have individual meetings with my players a couple of times throughout the season to check in and see how things were going and to address any issues or answer any questions they might have.
We also did journaling each week. The players would answer some questions, do their weekly goal setting, and have the chance to open up about any problems they might be having. In my responses with the individual athletes, if they were opening up about a problem with their parents, I would encourage them to have a conversation with them to let them know how they were feeling.
Most of recruiting for volleyball is done through their club coaches today. I did help out when asked by the player and/or parent to make phone calls, write letters of recommendations, and discuss the recruiting process.
Being a good communicator, staying positive, and defining expectations throughout the season I believe helped to eliminate problems with parents. If I did feel a parent needed a reminder of appropriate behavior, I would communicate with the parent individually to help make volleyball a positive experience for all.
I think this is a situation where if possible it’s very helpful to include a third-party, someone not the head coach. I think if it’s the head coach, regardless of what the players say, at some point, the player is gonna side with the parent and it’s gonna break the relationship with the coach.
I think this is a good example for the involvement of an assistant coach, a school counselor or an athletic Director. I think they can speak to either an athlete or a parent without it seeming that they are being defensive and just protecting themselves.
Also the best coaches anticipate these situations ahead of time, and identify the parent or parents that may exhibit these behaviors. Effective coaches work in the off-season and in preseason to continually talk about keeping things in perspective and having rational goals.
It’s also very helpful to point out that if the athlete is a type that is a potential college athlete that coaches very much consider what type of parent of the athlete brings along to the team environment.
Greg Bennett- Lewistown
Over the years, I have seen numerous instances of overbearing/out of control parents. Such individuals can have a very negative influence on, not just their own children, but other children, and, in some cases, the entire team.
Some examples of behavior that I have observed included:
A. Parents that constantly berated their child from the stands during the game.
B. Parents that constantly berated everyone else’s kids from the stands during the game.
C. Parents that disrupted team execution and chemistry during the game, by “coaching” their child from the stands.
D. Parents that made their child less coachable, and less of a team player, with their constant negativity about teammates, coaches, or the program in general.
E. Parents at excessively criticized their child’s performance after each game and pressured them with unrealistic expectations.
I tried many different approaches to negative parental situations involving the athletes I coached, and received mixed results. Many situations were unique unto themselves and some did require more tact than I am normally able to muster.
As my career progressed, I found that the best method for dealing with overbearing/out of control parents, was to try to stop them from evolving in the first place. I primarily did this by addressing the parent/athlete/coach relationship at a required parent meeting, which was held at the beginning of every season. Some of the key points I addressed during the parent portion of the meeting included:
A. Reminder that it was the job of the parent to always support their child and be his/her biggest fan. (They should leave any negative critique of performance to the coaching staff.)
B. Invitation to meet with any parent having questions or concerns about their athlete, as long as they make an appointment to do so. (No after game/heat of the moment discussions would be tolerated. The discussion would never involve commentary on someone else’s child.)
C. Implored them to not behave in a “cancerous manner” at contests or behind the scenes. (Not berating players from the stands, not coaching from the stands, not “poisoning” their children against other players or the coaching staff, etc.)
D. Explained that their child’s playing time and role on the team are always based upon ability and effort. Athletes earn a grade in the sport, much like they do in their academic subjects. “A” players play more than “B” players, “B” players play more than “C” players, etc. (Sometimes a player has a higher grade based upon work ethic, other times it is simply due to the fact that they are more athletically gifted.)
E. Reminded parents that, just as there were standards of behavior for our athletes and coaches, there were standards for behavior for parents/fans. They should never embarrass their child by being the parent that is constantly a jerk in the stands, or even ends up being removed from the facility by school officials due to profane/abusive commentary or actions towards players, coaches, officials, or other fans.
Due to laying out my expectations for parents ahead of time, I am sure that I was able to avoid many parental issues. I am actually amazed at how few parents ever requested to meet with me.
There were, however, times that I had to deal with issues that did arise, but most of the issues were minor. Although this was the case, there were times that I made a point of talking to the entire team about a problem, counseled individual players about there parental situation, or asked a parent to meet with me to discuss issues affecting their athlete or the team. (Thankfully occurrences when I had to actually set up a meeting with a parent were very rare.)
Evan Massey- Galesburg
Sadly, I don’t think I was as successful in this area as I would like to have been. 90-95% of the parents that I worked with were positive with their kids, but the other 5-10% negatively impacted their kids and often our team.
We had a parent meeting before the season. In the meeting I tried to talk about how important the parents could be in their daughter’s success. I shared things that would be positive and constructive for the parents to do, and also went over negative behaviors.
In particular, I tried to address the problems with “parent coaching your kid.” This could be during games and it could be post-game. I tried to sell them on how this impacted their daughter’s development of self-confidence and independence.
Unfortunately, some parents who needed to hear the message either didn’t seem to listen or didn’t even show up. I guess the value was that the positive parents listened, it hopefully made them realize they were doing the right things.
The problem in helping the athlete deal with the out of control parent is that as a coach, it is touchy to be critical of their parents. I had athletes who literally came in tears about a parent coaching them during games, or a parent wanting to do post-game analysis. As upset as the player might be, the player never wanted me to talk to the parent.
I thought the most effective way to help the athlete and to help the parents was to be able to just have casual conversations in the summer when we were just “hanging out” at a tourney or league game, and in pre-season before we got into the heat of competition. In a ten minute conversation with an athlete or parent, I tried to just throw in one minute of positive/negative parenting thoughts.
With the Athletes, during the off-season and during the season in the casual conversations, I wanted to help them have the strength to not get beaten down by a parent.
1- Give them praise. The athlete who was being coached at home often became beaten down. Basketball was not fun and their confidence became lower.
2- Talk about being in the zone and blocking out the outside noise. Talked about the importance of being in the moment.
3- Don’t let outside voices impact you, whether boyfriend, friends, or parents.
4- Enjoy the games. After you leave the locker room after a game, don’t beat yourself up and spend a lot of time analyzing. Try to just focus on what you did well. We will work on corrections the next day. Don’t let anyone prevent you from enjoying.
5- Share some negative examples.
With the Parents in the casual conversations, I would throw in things like…
1- Your daughter is playing so well. She plays so much better when she is confident, relaxed and in the zone. (No mention of parent behavior.)
2- Sometime she seems to want to succeed so bad that I just try to get her to relax. She puts too much pressure on herself.
3- Share negative examples that I saw.
I don’t know if these things worked but I thought it was important to just drop one subtle message and then just continue our conversation. Maybe the parents didn’t feel it was subtle.
The other thing I tried to do was in off-season and during the season, was to have “culture” discussions on a daily basis with the team. They might just last 2-3 minutes at the beginning, middle, or end of practice.
One of the “culture” topics was about player-parent relationships. I thought it was effective to talk to the entire team about these topics so kids didn’t feel defensive. I would talk about common parental behaviors that players found frustrating, and ways they effectively dealt with those behaviors.
As coach, you hope you created an atmosphere where players didn’t feel the negative situation was her fault. And you hoped you could just provide a relationship where the athlete felt it was safe to talk to you as a coach.
Looking back, I wish I had been more direct with the overbearing parents. Sadly, the parents who scream coaching tips and yell at the refs don’t just impact their child, they impact the entire team and cast a negative light on the program.
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