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Parenting, coaching pose varied challenges

Published 9:00 pm Monday, January 14, 2002

By Cliff Gillies / Prep Sports Columnist

Parenting brings enough challenges without adding the hazards of coaching one of your own children.

Coaching children to be children is something everyone who has one does. There is no more important parental responsibility than coaching a child toward adulthood, which they inevitably reach. Very few, however, will become a major league athlete or coach. Coaching a sport is different than coaching life, even though both are essential to success.

Many high school varsity coaches decide not to coach a family member because of other potential dangers. For one thing, coaching styles usually differ from parenting styles. Clashes with offspring on the team can turn a coaching problem into a family problem. More than one player/child has asked his coach/parent to be a coach at school and parent at home.

Coaching characteristics are not, nor should they be, the same in every sport or common among all coaches.

A coach who feels his style may be a problem for coaching his own child might find it best to have someone else do the coaching. One great advantage athletes have while growing up is experiencing different styles of coaches — just like when they take on the responsibilities for their own careers and families.

Coaching and parenting are as much about learning and teaching what not to do as what to do.

Those deciding whether to coach their own child have several realities to consider. Here are but a few:

  • The tendency to show positive bias, consciously or unconsciously, exists. Perceptions of giving breaks or opportunities are magnified by false interpretations by teammates, fans, and even other parents.

  • A coach’s child is expected to deliver a higher standard of performance. Coaches often overcompensate by being harder and tougher on their own children than on the rest of the team. A coach’s kid is often required to prove there is no favoritism.

  • The strain on the family intensifies. Even though the family may become closer, that togetherness is often fostered by the selective hearing loss of spouses. Insults and flattering comments must be ignored; the positive without pretension and the negative without retaliation.

  • Ultimately the coach, team and child might be hurt. No matter how objective a coach may be, running away from problems others may have with their own favorite player (including some parents) makes coaches a convenient target.

    A parent-coach may even be thankful to have one less parent to deal with. But if the team is really to benefit, the objectivity expected of coaches should also be practiced by all parents.

    Objectivity is a dizzying balancing act for coaches and parents if the coaching tightrope is held up by weak support. Even when every conceivable precaution is taken, problems are bound to occur.

    Comparisons are a good way for parents to avert bias:

  • Talk to your child about the difficulty you have being objective with some people. Ask for and listen to your child’s opinions about how objective you are toward the game, the players and the coach. Compare opinions.

  • Make comparisons of the ways the coach makes game-time decisions. Is it running time, turnovers, efficiency ratings, dedication, attitude, statistical comparisons? Or is it player bias?

  • Listen to those (including yourself) who rate players. Is the coach using the same criteria for his/her child as for others?

  • Ask a trusted friend to observe practice (or a game) and rate the objectivity of the child-coach relationships. Is criticism given objectively?

  • Ask others to honestly tell you who they would choose to be starters. Compare the opinions with your own. Consider who truly should be playing when the game is on the line.

    Being a parent/coach may be too much of a family burden even with the temporary blessings that come from sports accomplishments. Children perform better and are less confused when directed by only one coaching staff. Confusion loses more games than children do.

    No matter how objective a coach may be when playing his own son or daughter, he is being realistic when he prepares to respond to accusations of favoritism. Parents, and especially parent’s parents, will always lobby for their own favorite players. Grandparents are convinced everyone will win, eventually, if their grandchildren play.

    I’ve noticed that I don’t care if the soccer coach plays his son so long as my grandson is still playing. (They could, however, pass the ball to my grandson more often.)

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