KID COACH'S CLIPBOARD: Parent Coach What to Do When Young Children/Kids Are Just Not that Into You

The hope embedded inside every new season is to demonstrate coaching ability well enough to receive the one reward, arguably, revered by all coaches: R-E-S-P-E-C-T from players, parents, and other parent-coaches. You try a multitude of things that you think will earn you that respect. But, what do you do, Mr. or Mrs. Volunteer Parent-Coach, when your players are just not that into you?

Your players are all good kids, but… "They lack the necessary drive, desire, and motivation to improve." His poor attitude says, “I do what I want.” Or, "It is too bad he doesn’t want to listen better; he would be much easier to coach." Other comments frustrated coaches say, "She is fearful and timid and therefore difficult, at times, to coach. Why isn’t their will to win higher? Why are they so fidgety and so quickly unfocused? It is the kids’ goofing around that makes it hard to get any good flow going in practice. If only the 10 to15 good minutes of every practice could be harnessed for a whole practice, how good could they be?"

While this may be true, you understand that nothing can be done about parents. The time wasted worrying about parents is sometimes why players are just not that into you. Your job is simple as a coach. You must begin to understand every player on your team as an individual.  It is not productive to make them an extension of their parents or part of the collective problem. Often we  never get enough time to work with players so we must make the most of the time we have.  Instead of focusing on what you don't have begin thinking about what you do have.  Identify players’ strengths and weaknesses.  Adjust your coaching style around them.  This should begin to help them work better, collectively, as a team.

Befriending players is a set-up for coaching deeper coaching problems and eventual failure. Inherently, there is nothing wrong with being friendly. However befriending one player or a group of players always means alienating others. A coach’s winning instincts already will cause you to error your attention more towards your team’s star players. While this is a natural law of coaching, befriending star players, groups of star players, or their parents overtly sends the wrong message to other players and parents. As the old saying goes, “The whole is stronger than the sum of its parts.” Building rapport by building a collective team spirit is how to gain players’ respect. Work less on impressing a few and more on getting the buy-in of the whole team concept. This is true leadership. On occasion attitudes towards teamwork can be the problem; if so, sacrifice a practice and do teambuilding drills to work on teamwork.

Kids, as much as we try to think of them this way, are not little adults. Sports offer them time to get together with friends, be active, and mostly have fun. A personal agenda to prove yourself as a winning coach to parents at the kids’ expense will put you in the precarious position where players are just not that into you. Build winning values that promote winning attitudes verses focusing your attitude too much on winning as the only outcome. Too often youth coaches take the "winning is the only thing" approach. Arguably, this may work for a time but over time kids can get the wrong idea of why they are playing the game and begin to lose their edge. It is more than just numbers to them regardless of what they tell you. Young players enjoy practicing and playing for a coach who teaches them how to win and lose with dignity.

These are just some of the no-excuse truths to better youth coaching and understanding players who cannot verbalize why they are just not that into you.  R-E-S-P-E-C-T from players comes easiest when you take players’ needs into consideration first.  Each player’s needs are different and while it may, at first, seem daunting to build your coaching strategies around player needs; in the end you will not only have the respect of your players but that of parents and other parent-coaches.  See you in class!