Why don't parents make good coaches?

[cs]

Those of you without children may not understand this, but than again having parents at one point you may.

Why don't parents make good coaches for their kids? They may make great coaches for other kids, but for theirs it don't seem to work, or at least in my case.

My kid is an extremly coachable kids. She listens to the coaches and does excatly what they say, but when the parents try to coach it just don't work, even if I know what I'm talking about. Why is this?

Chad

Side note being as I don't play tennis. I was trying to help the kid with her tennis game and like most of us here I've at least tried to tennis and I understand a little, but I'm a racquetball player. I was trying to show her how to serve by putting her left foot forward and serving across her body. Her coach wants her to stand with both feet parrallel with the back line and serve that way. Seems wrong to me, but what do I know.

[uncas]

Thought 1 ....Expectations...often lead to some parents to be exceptionally hard on their kids because they want them to be perfect......
Thought 2......kids are embarrassed to have their father coaching.
Thought 3.....biased as far as time on the playing field...giving their kids more time than the others...bad PR.

[km gresham]

Well, better late than never to the party, Chad!

Once the beloved child reaches the ripe old age of 10 or so the parent begins to lose intelligence. By the time they're 15 it's amazing we can put three words together to form a sentence. When they're 17 they wonder that some higher life form hasn't eaten us.

Fortunately they reach their 20s and we begin to regain some of our lost cerebral capacity.

I hear when they get into their 30s and have their own children our intelligence is fully restored. :rolleyes: :D

[Peter Kalshoven]

Karen, as always, I'm ROTFLMAO! You've met my kids, but it's been a couple years. My Number 1 Son is now 15, and I am a blithering idiot.
So it goes!

Chad, in answer to your question, I think one of the reasons is that a parent as coach has a finite amount of sports knowledge, and your kid knows EXACTLY how much that knowledge consists of. Also, if you coached your kid when they were younger, they figure they've learned everything you know. (And they may be right!) So unless you're a professional coach, odds are the kid won't listen.

I used to coach my kids in soccer, and I learned early the value of a good assistant coach. If I wanted my kid to do something, I'd tell the assistant, and then he'd go tell my kid... who would agreeably do just what the coach said.

My first experience in coaching basketball was as an assistant to a good coach who's son was sure Dad was completely bonkers. I coached Phillip, and his dad coached everybody else.

Final note, it's just as bad with spouses. As a newlywed, my darling bride signed me up to be coach for her workplace Women's Softball team. Unfortunately, she knew (correctly) that she knew more about pitching than I did, so she wouldn't listen to a word I said. Thank God for a good assistant (one of the other husbands) who had the ability to call timeout, walk to the mound, and tell my wife a stupid joke, to loosen her up. Then he tell her to keep pitching the blue smoke (it was slow pitch), make her laugh, and then play would resume. I think Joe saved my marriage more than once! :D

[Harry Miller]

In team sports it's even harder.
Some of the other kids on the team will think you are a jerk for favouring your own kid while others will think you're a jerk because you're being mean to her and not giving her a chance. These factions will be there regardless of how you actually are treating your own kid. Then there's what your own kid thinks. I remember being embarrassed when my dad put me in to pitch when I knew I wasn't much good. The result - I was even worse. But if he didn't coach we wouldn't have had a team. It's just harder to coach your own kid.

[ 03-28-2005, 09:23 AM: Message edited by: Harry Miller ]

[Hughman]

Kids (and spouses) also tend to interpret everything a parent says with a different yardstick, based on all the complex experiences of growing up with you. Strangers are much more one-dimensional, and are listened to for what they actually say.

[Del Lansing]

A good deal of parents don't even make good parents, and you would expect them to make good coaches??

[km gresham]

Peter, good luck! :D We're just beginning to come out on the other side - the youngest is 19. And, Chad, good luck to you, too. I can remember when my parents became idiots. Funny thing, they're just like regular people now. :D

[cs]

I can understand why a parent doesn't make a good coach in a team atmosphere. The problem is one on one. Kids just don't react to parents that well in that situation.

Chad

[Ian McColgin]

There are exceptions that may come with time. My sister and I had some years of excellent instruction from Harry DeLayer before we could benefit from Mother's riding instruction.

As a small child I learned hugely from Mother about sailing and when I went off to summer camp I started as about the best of my age. However at camp I grew in leaps and bounds as I was learning systematically.

It's like spouses or lovers teaching. When it works it's wonderful but generally it's more likely to work in the Socratic model, which has problematic social stigmae nowadays, than in an equal sort of relationship. Among our sailing crowd, it turned out that the various women spouses (a better plural would be spice) learned far more from each other by sailing themselves without the guys than ever they learned with us.