Coaching Your Child

Coaching your own child adds a whole new complexity to coaching. What might seem like easy decisions become problematic. Every move you make is judged by other team members and their parents, as well as your own child. The questions keep coming, are you favouring your child, or being too harsh on them?

Regardless of the decisions you make as a coach, opinions about most of your decisions will differ from person to person. Therefore, the only thing you can really do is make sure that you are being true to yourself, your child and your team. If you believe your treatment is fair and you aren’t coaching your child any differently to the rest of the team, then you can hold your head high.

However, achieving this degree of certainty isn’t as easy as it seems. That’s where self-assessment can play a role. Whilst this is necessary for coaching success, it plays an even bigger role when you are coaching your own child.

“Without proper self-evaluation, failure is inevitable.”

John Wooden

Below is a link to an article by Don Eldin where he discusses the complexity of coaching your own child. This article gives insight into the different complications you may face coaching your child, and ways to combat them. Don also provides some helpful processes you can follow to ensure you are being the best coach you can to both your child and the rest of the team.