EDITOR’S NOTE: Featured in this month’s Parents Column are companion articles that highlight how to effectively approach the parent-coach relationship from the coaches’ and parents’ perspectives.
The parent-coach connection THE PARENTS’ PERSPECTIVE
by GORDON BENSON, PAST CHAIR, PARENTS COMMITTEE
What is our role as parents as our child en- gages in competitive sports and, in particular, in one or more of the disciplines of the sport of fig- ure skating? How might we work with our child and our child’s coach(es) so we move forward to- gether as a team, in the best interests of our child? What is the coach’s role? And what is our child’s role?
Parents, coaches, athletes and leadership
from U.S. Figure Skating member clubs engaged in conversation on the topic of the parent-skat- er-coach connection at Governing Council in May 2012 in Myrtle Beach. It is important that each person in this team understand her or his role and how to work together in clubs to cre- ate and sustain environments that promote the positive development of youth as persons and as athletes. We asked those in attendance at the seminar
to write down three words that described the role of parents as their child engages in competitive figure skating. While there were a variety of ways we described the parent’s role, there was some consistency in participant responses. Te role of the parent is to support, nurture, encourage, pro- tect and pay. Tere are different ways we parents ap-
proach parenting. It’s important to acknowledge this. We may think one approach to raising our children is better than another. We may think that there is a time and a place for each approach, changing how we parent based on the circum- stances. We may have different understandings of what it means to support, to nurture, to encour- age, to protect, to pay. So while we acknowledge that there are crucial functions related to our role
38 DECEMBER 2012
as parents, we recognize that we may have differ- ent ways of expressing or doing these functions. Many among us believe that the aim of
parenting is to optimize the growth and devel- opment of our children so they can be produc- tive and engaged members of their community as they are developmentally able. Our role is focused heavily on nurturing and educating our children. We look to create for our children a safe, nurturing, supportive environment within which our children can explore, discover and grow. We look for other positive environments within which our children can grow. And as members of skating clubs, we seek to create in these clubs environments that promote positive youth development. To that end, it is important that we parents
work with our children’s coaches, our children and other club members to create an environ- ment within which all children — not just our own children — can explore, discover and grow. It is important that we learn how to work togeth- er, and the emphasis is on working together for the benefit of the children in the club. Practically speaking, what might this look
like? Using a relatively simple example, how might we work with our child and his/her coach on our child’s training? It would be important for us to understand what our child’s goals are for skating. Our child would need to communicate his or her goals to the coach as well. It would be important for us to communicate with our child’s coach about expectations for communica- tion regarding our child’s progress. It is helpful at the beginning to establish a basic structure among coach, parent and child.
Using a fairly complicated example, how
might we parents, within the context of a skat- ing club, network among ourselves to identify a coach who would be a good fit for our child? When we move into a new town, how do we find a dentist, a mechanic, a plumber, an electrician, or a doctor? We network. We ask around. We lis- ten to, weigh and reflect on what others tell us. It works in a community. Does it work in the community of a skating club? If your skating club has multiple professionals who are there to coach children in the disciplines of skating, how does one find the best match? We can network, share information with others, listen to, weigh and reflect on what others tell us, respecting each of the coaches in the club. We can talk with coaches to understand how they work, how they think about working with children. We can get the information we need to make the best choice for our child. Having said this, it is important that we un-
derstand and respect our coaches’ perspective on this matter. Coaches do not want us parents to be soliciting business for them to avoid accusations of third-party solicitation. And this is what makes this situation so complicated. Understanding and respecting each other’s perspective is a place to start. Finding ways to work together in the con- text of our skating clubs is the challenge for us all. Parents, coaches and skater are a team. Te team is athlete-driven, coach-guided and par- ent-supported. We work together to create an environment in our skating clubs that is safe, nurturing, and supportive, an environment with- in which our children can explore, discover and grow.
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