Coaches vs parents in youth soccer?

I have been a parent and I have been a coach. Every one of these sides sees the other one as a problem.

When I was a coach, my biggest challenge was to keep parents engage and understand the long term developmental vision

When I was a parent, my biggest challenge was the fact that coaches don’t communicate goals and expectations clearly. Also, many coaches don’t have the credentials needed to provide the highest level of training to the team.

I’m sure that there are many more issues. What are your thoughts?

I like this topic. I think all parents just want to understand what is going on with their kid. it might be selfish, but they aren't kids for very long. i think a lot of coaches forget that we are paying for a service and we have a right to ask questions. my kids are a bit older so we no longer worry about our kids getting play time reduced for simply calling the coach. its funny, when we call our kids school teachers they will spend as much time as needed going over any issues.

Very true. Let me ask you this: what kind of things you would of like to see from the coach or team to understand your kids development?

that's a good question. think more of the feedback will have to be given to the kid. for example: "here is what you did wrong in the game" or " this is what you need to work on". probably hard to give much feedback with only a couple of practices a week. why teams that practice 3 to 4 times a week are that much better.

how often do you think a coach should provide feedback?

don't think it should be scheduled, but there should definitely be more of it. think coaches are too quick to bench kids vs. trying to explain why and helping them through the problem. I have teenagers and I've learned that it is not always the physical part of the game they struggle with, but something mental.

smartcoachtx20 wrote:how often do you think a coach should provide feedback?

My DD's first coach sent a letter over the holidays with goods and bads to work on. she hung it on her closet door i guess to glance at and think about occasional.

nothing the next few years,

next coach that scheduled sit downs during practice mid season and went through thoroughly her pro's and con's with us parents present, my player came out of that meeting pumped and ready to work harder that she ever had. she asked to even sign up for small group private skills sessions.

next coach, crickets, (this was also back to the first coach).

now shes on a group text with her teammates where one of the girls sends out what the coach told her over another text..... I'm in dismay in what coaches think is ok for communication sometimes.

How do you guys research coaches? How do you find out if the coach is good or not before joining?

Many players/parents already have exposure to many coaches by either playing against them or having had friends who have played for them before. IE....the coach will already have a reputation and the player/family will already have an opinion of that coach. For new coaches who may not have an established or well known reputation, or if a player is relatively new to the NTX soccer landscape, I believe most people ask around about coaches and find them by either word of mouth (many times message boards such as this one) or by locating the coach through the club and then going to open practices.

Parent-mentors will in general be harder on their own children. Parent-mentors will in general be ignorant of how they're acting with their own children. Coachers are the fastest footballers and believe they're more qualified than they are. ... Children experience difficulty isolating Dad/Mom as parent from Dad/Mom as mentor.