Coaching Objectives: Managing Parents

You don’t want to stumble across a grizzly bear cub if it’s mother is around the corner. And sometimes, the parents of the girls on your softball team can be just as scary.

If you’ve coached through a whole season and never had an altercation with a team parent, you’re in a lucky minority. When one of your players is spending a lot of time on the bench, not playing the position she feels she should, or is just feeling unhappy for some reason and her parent steps in, the conversation that ensues is rarely an easy one to have. There are, however, measures you can take to anticipate these situations and hopefully help effectively reduce, diffuse, or eliminate parent problems before they arise.

Think of the Parents’ Perspective

An important thing to keep in mind before your season even starts is that the parents of your players will likely have a very narrow perspective for a few reasons. They don’t have direct interaction with you or your coaching staff during practices/games and are receiving information through a “kid filter,” meaning that aside from what they observe from the sidelines, they know what their child tells them. This may not always be truthful, unbiased, or the whole story. They are also likely to make the interests of their own child their only priority.

Knowing this, it’s important to make sure that both the players and parents are well briefed before the season begins. A happy player means a happy parent. Players are more likely to be happy if you as a coach give them clear expectations and follow through with them. When that fails, parents are more likely to be reasonable if there is a protocol to follow.

Pre-Season Parent Briefing

Call your team parents to a pre-season meeting and hand them a printed outline of your rules, team goals, expectations, policies, etc. Like I said, the parents don’t have as much interaction with the coaches as the athletes do, so it is best if they have a physical copy of the coach’s policies and expectations for reference. The parents will feel more comfortable if they think you know what you’re doing (especially those parents who have coached their own children). Therefore, it is important to emphasize specifics.

Plainly lay out your expectations and rules regarding attitude, leadership, sportsmanship, etc., along with a plan to encourage positive attitude, and clear consequences for poor attitude and poor sportsmanship. If you intend to spread playing time around equally, state that and stick to it. If you intend to put the best players on the field at any given time, make that clear.

If you choose the latter, give players the option to prove themselves to you, and make that procedure clear to the parents before the season starts. I had a 12U catcher once who spent quite a bit of time on the bench because she just couldn’t keep the ball in her glove. She came to me one day and said she’d been practicing on her own a lot and that she wanted a second chance. I gave it to her, and she became one of the team’s best catchers that same season. The players and parents should know ahead of time that this type of behavior, as opposed to parent complaints, will be rewarded.

Also lay out rules for the parents regarding their behavior while watching games, their proximity to the team during games, your standard procedure for bringing up issues, etc.

If policies and consequences are clearly stated in the beginning of the season, parents are less likely to blow up if their child has an issue later on. The coaches should also share some of the team goals with the parents and strategies for achieving them. The entire emphasis of the meeting and the printed outline should be on concrete positives, issues, possible solutions, and strategies, rather than vague ideas or promises.

Other Parent Management Ideas

This may depend on the particular parents involved with your team, but you may be able to select a parent representative who can be in charge of reminding the parents to behave properly during games, and also collecting feedback over the course of the season.

It’s a good idea for a coach to receive anonymous parent feedback at the end of the season. That will allow you to reflect on what you can improve without developing negative feelings toward a particular parent, or worse, the child. Though it can be difficult at times, try not to let the behavior of a crazy parent affect your attitude toward his or her child. Remember why you are coaching, and never punish a player (even subconsciously if you can help it!) for factors out of her control.

Read my other coaching posts here:

The Easiest Way to Make Your Team Better

How to Get Better at Coaching Softball, Literally

Team Goal Setting

Dealing with Concussions

What Kind of Environment are you Fostering?