Effective Strategies for Communicating with Parents in Sport

Abstract

Participation in athletics provides student-athletes a place to develop autonomy and grow socially through interactions with peers, parents, and coaches (Torres & Hager 2013). Coaches entrusted by parents to guide and nurture their child's sport experience fulfill the role of teacher, counselor, colleague, mentor, supervisor, and leader (Martens, 2012). Within each role, the coach is challenged to effectively communicate with student-athletes, other coaches, administrators, and parents. Coaches frequently discover that parents are the most contentious and often present one of the greatest challenges in developing and leading their team (Brown, 2003). Therefore, the coach must find a way to effectively communicate with parents to increase the likelihood that sport participation will be a positive experience for the student-athletes both on the practice field and at home. To better prepare coaches to effectively communicate with parents, this article (1) identifies seven types of parents who coaches commonly communicate with in sport, (2) provides key characteristics to assist coaches in identifying these types of parents, and (3) recommends strategies to assist coaches in effectively communicating with parents.