How To Deal With Soccer Parents And Get Them Involved
Wednesday, February 3rd, 2010It has been observed that most often a child’s approach towards any sport is conditioned mostly by his/her parent’s mindset. Parents have the tendency to burden their children with their high expectations, their unfulfilled dreams, and past frustrations…
So, today I have a challenge for you… schedule a meeting with parents and play this short video for them. I’m sure the only way they can really see is by “seeing” with the eyes of their own kids and the vision they have about their own parent’s behaviors and how that influences them:
Here’s an example of bad parent behavior during a match…
Now, here’s an example of a good atmosphere between players and their parents:
When the sport is interpreted in a wrong way; it can cause psychological suffering and a profound sense of seclusion. This is something that is critical for the parents to understand.
When it comes to professional soccer, it’s the coach’s duty to identify young player’s strengths, their inherent talents and their potential to develop into skillful players.
We all know that it calls for good experience, a cool temperament, and complete knowledge of the game. But there is one more thing that you cannot ignore in your career as a coach; handling the kid’s parents .
Let me throw some light on key areas that need your time, effort, and aptitude so that the parent’s involvement in their children’s game contributes rather than impending their kid’s development.
As a coach, you’ll come across parents who want overall development of their kid’s personality. You should teach them to first carefully reflect on the meaning that they personally attribute to soccer. Tell them to do this by developing a positive connection with the game. By this I mean that they should accept that soccer is not only a sport but also a means to help young players grow psychologically as well as physically.
Before you start working on your players, take some time to study their family backgrounds. When studies were carried out on certain top level players, it was found that their parents had played a critical role in shaping their personal motivations. It emerged that their parents had also played some sport at least at a medium level and had also achieved outstanding success. In such a scenario, encourage parents to introduce their children to sports, but not necessarily to the sport they had played.
Those players who finally reach high levels of success are constantly supported at economic, moral, as well as emotional level.
Sometimes it gets very difficult for a young player to make important and decisive choices when the lifestyles and models suggested by his coach are different from those offered by his parents. Here, educate the parents on the highpoints of the game matching the talents of their kid. This way they’ll understand that such decisions are not you individual choice but demand of the game.
When any parent has a talented child, they are bound to commit the error of making him/ her feel different from his teammates. This should be discouraged. Rather, he/ she should be kept away from the messages suggesting that he/ she is exceptionally gifted. This is important because if the kid is swayed at an early age that his talent sets him apart from the rest of the team, his/ her yearning to improve will suffer immensely.
There would be parents who think that they can neglect their kid’s school in favor of soccer for the good of the child. This is dangerous. School must be the main objective even for a hugely talented child. Make the parents aware of the many factors that determine success in soccer.
Give them the account of some highly skilled players who dreamed of making it big in professional soccer but later regretted that they did not have a degree/ diploma.
Make an effort to associate parents with the club. Parents should be convinced to maintain a good relationship with the club. They should be willing to work together with the club. Inform them of the benefits by making themselves available whenever the club holds special meetings so that they can stay informed of the social activities and all those programs which directly concern their children.
If on one hand excessively interfering parents seem to be the biggest problem for both the coach and the club, there are some parents who consider the club only as a playgroup for their children for example; youth soccer schools . Here the parents are totally convinced that their interest in their kid’s soccer activities is of little use in their overall learning process. This lack of interest results in the parents delegating even the important educational responsibilities which they should personally take towards their children.
Help the parents to allow their kids draw pleasure from the game. The parents should refrain from putting too much accountability on the child in the game. Kids should be able to win or lose, play well or not so well without fearing their parent’s responses. Let them to play in a condition of total calm and peace of mind. They should be encouraged to handle any difficult situation as and when and at the same time rewarded in the event of a slightest progress to keep their spirits high.
It is fundamental not to put the kid in a situation to compete with his teammates. This is necessary to avoid any comparisons with the more skilled players.
It is imperative that parents should attend their kids training sessions, competitions, and live tournaments. There may be times when the player would be excluded from the match is confined to the bench. There will be roles and positions allotted to players by their coaches that the parents may not really expect for their kid.
It’s reasonably hard for the parents to acknowledge the limits of their kids and therefore they find it easy to put the blame on the coach and/ or his incompetence. The coach therefore becomes a scapegoat. This is the greatest and the only obstacle that prevents the child from achieving any success and most parents fail to understand this.
Here, the parents need to be taught to change their attitude towards the coach rather than getting into bitter conflicts with him. This way they’ll learn to never get into a direct conflict with the coach if they feel that he is unable to get the best out of their kids.
For a player to become a real champion he needs to grow up in a warm and stimulation atmosphere within the family. The coach should also share a great relationship with the parents so that they are able to offer their kids the support that they need but without directly affecting their choices.
When parents are not able to identify their position, set their limits, behave rationally and respect the coach’s competence in the professional development of their kids, it’s not just the game but the young players who are affected the most. Let it be known to them.
Leave your feedback below!
Yours in soccer,
Andre Botelho
