If you ask any coach what the most difficult part of their job is, most of them would say “dealing with parents.” I have talked to coaches who have been coaching for several decades, and they agree that today’s parents can be more difficult and demanding than they have ever been. There is little doubt that while a good group of parents can make your season pleasurable, a tough group of parents can make the season a living nightmare for you and your players. You will never be able to totally eliminate all parent problems, and no matter what you do, you will never be able to eliminate problems from the most extreme parents. There is just no reasoning with unreasonable people. However, there are several things you can do to minimize parental problems and use parents to your benefit as a coach.
I feel that we have been fairly lucky at my school to not have a large amount of parental complaints and problems. I have heard some horror stories from coaches in our surrounding districts and I assumed that our parents were just different from theirs. It was brought to my attention that there are parental complaints in our district and they can be significant, but they are rarely directed toward our program. While I do believe that the parents in our district are knowledgeable about baseball and are very supportive of our program, I know that for the most part they are no different from the parents in other district, or in the other programs in our school. So why small amount of problems with our program?
It dawned on my as I was writing the first two paragraphs of this post, that this has not always been the case in my coaching career. I was a very young head coach during my first few years (I became a head coach at 23 years old) and I think we had problems at that time because parents did not know me and simply did not trust me. Having recently become a parent myself, I realize that your kids are the center of your life, and you always want to the best for them. So if a significant portion of their life is being controlled by someone they do not know or do not trust, problems may ensue. Many of the problems at the beginning of your coaching career are simply unavoidable. I do feel that as your coaching career moves on, there are several steps you can take to have more effective communication with parents and prevent many problems before thy start.
Start by give parents a significant role on the team. I believe that most parents want to be supportive of their kid’s athletic programs and want to help out in any way possible. Some may do this with the expectation that it will help their son gain more playing time. Make it very clear that a parent’s involvement in the team will have no effect on their playing time. Then do the more difficult thing which is to make it true. It very difficult to sit the kid of the parents who help make major improvement to your field, but if they are not one of your best nine, you have to sit them. The integrity of your program will be better off in the long run.
With that being said many parents do simply want to help, and they truly mean it when they say “let me know if there is ever anything we can do to help.” Your goal should be to find a way to have them enhance your program. We establish parent committees every year at our spring meeting. We have a Double Header Food Committee that is responsible for supplying food for each team between games of a double header. We also have a Spring Trip Snack Committee. This committee is responsible for supplying healthy snacks for team each year for our four day trip to St. Louis each April. Additionally, we have a senior day committee and a banquet committee. While we have several parents signing up for multiple spots, it gives our parents a way to become involved in our program and lets them contribute in a positive way. There are several other ways to get parents involved including field work and team dinners just to name a few. This approach can have two very positive affects. This will grow trust between the coaching staff and the parents, and you will enhance some aspect of your program, or take some of the work away from yourself. Remember, always make it clear that their participation in parent committees does not guarantee their son’s playing time, their son’s performance will determine that.
Getting parents involved is a fantastic way to alleviate many parent problems in the short term, but if you want long term success with parents in you have to start building a relationship with them before they get to you. Getting involved in the youth organizations in your area is a great way to start to build positive relationships. We have implemented many youth camps and clinics that help build that trust between our coaches, our players and the surrounding community. The biggest benefit to this is when you have do have to have a difficult discussion with a parent (and it will happen) they will be familiar with your philosophies and there will hopefully be some level of trust built up. It makes those conversations easier to have.
Some of the things we have done in past include, a winter, summer, and early spring youth camp. This camp allows young kids access to our players and our facility as we teach them the things they will need to know as they progress toward high school. If your facilities allow for it, invite parents to watch. We have also implemented a youth coaches clinic. This is one of my favorite days of the year. We host youth coaches from our organization, as well as from surrounding youth organizations to attend a free coach clinic. We usually try to have one or more guest speakers talking on a number of topics as well as having our staff present a number of various skills and coaching philosophies. This gives parents an insight into what will be taught at the high school level, as well as lets them see what your program is all about before they get there. This has been one of the biggest factors in developing trust between our program and the community.
As successful as the other camps and clinics we have implemented have been, by far the biggest hit has been our father-son camp. Dads and sons attend for 2 hours on two separate Sundays. At this camp we do not coach the kids at all. We coach the dads and let them coach their sons. We run through a variety of different offensive and defensive drills with the dads, and allow them to coach their kids throughout the camp. We also have father/son competitions where they can win official gear from our team. This has been a tremendous hit and it is a very enjoyable to day for the parents, staff, our players, and most importantly, the young players who attend.
Implementing the above ideas and developing positive relationships will not diffuse all parent complaints, but it will help to limit them. Some people are unreasonable and will find things to complain about no matter how great of a job you are doing. In the next section I will discuss the best ways to manage parent complaints in season and how to handle difficult situation when they arise.
