The experience of parent-coaches in youth sport: A qualitative case study from Australia

Abstract

There has been increasing academic interest in understanding the nature of parental involvement in youth sport. Much scholarly focus has illuminated both positive and negative forms of sport parenting from the perspectives of coaches, parents and youth participants. One less understood aspect, however, surrounds the potentially conflicting role of parents who coach their own children in youth sport. This is surprising given that many parents demonstrate support by fulfilling essential roles such as team manager and team coach (Jeffery-Tosoni, Fraser-Thomas, & Baker, 2015). This paper draws on rich, descriptive qualitative data from 16 parent/coaches to highlight the contemporary experiences of parent/coaches who coach their own child. Three themes were identified including deliberate criticism, limited recognition, and behaviour justification, illustrating how parent/coaches intentionally demonstrate differential behaviour toward their child in contrast to the rest of the team. Examples of this include demonstrating deliberate criticism at training and matches and overlooking their child in awarding weekly encouragement awards after each match. Significantly, parent/coaches justify these behaviours in attempting to fulfil the dual role of parent and team coach to the best of their ability. Through the lens of social constructionism, we argue that this is not only problematic for parent and child relationships, but it may also have a reinforcing influence on how other parent/coaches negotiate the dual role. We argue that the reproduction of these behaviours can potentially preserve problematic aspects of parental involvement in youth sport, offering a unique perspective to the sport-parenting literature.

Child-rearing in public spaces: the challenging dual-role relationships of parent–coaches and child–athletes of coaches in Swedish team sports

“…Further, the parent-coach has the possibility to create good conditions for their child's development providing them both shortterm and long-term benefits. The positive interactions of close relationship are also evident from previous studies in other contexts, especially in individual sports (Jowett, 2008;Jowett et al, 2007) and among male athletes and their fathers (Elliott & Drummond, 2017;Weiss & Fretwell, 2005). Sport is a place where children may get the chance to enjoy performing, receive attention and have their athletic skills 'publicly assessed' (Lareau, 2011, p. 113).…”

“…In Sweden, 80% of children aged 12-16 participate in sports activities, which are mainly run by volunteers, many of which are the parents of the children playing (Seippel, 2010). In North America, 84-90% of coaches are parent-coaches (Weiss & Fretwell, 2005) and there are also numerous parentcoaches in the United Kingdom (Jowett et al, 2007) and in Australia (Elliott & Drummond, 2017). Parent-coaches are highly prevalent in Western countries; however, it is important to note that the exact number of parent-coaches and child-athletes of coaches in many countries remains unknown.…”

“…The negative aspects according to parent-coaches include problems with their children's rebellious behaviour and/or that they either place higher expectations on their child or give them limited recognition (Elliott & Drummond, 2017;Weiss & Fretwell, 2005). From the children's perspective, the dual-role relationship brings negative treatment from the parent-coach resulting in criticism regarding mistakes and pressure to perform (Weiss & Fretwell, 2005).…”

“…By contrast, this study focussed on young non-elite participants with ongoing involvement in two team sports that no previous researchers have focussed on. This design will add to the prior knowledge about team sport (Elliott & Drummond, 2017;Weiss & Fretwell, 2005).…”

“…To date, most research on this topic has been conducted within the context of the U.K. or the U.S. However, Elliott and Drummond (2017) reported on parent-coaches in junior Australian football; though, the results were only a 'by-product' from a study of parenting in the sport (p. 69). This research will expand the knowledge of the dual roles, within the Swedish context, using a unique design that focuses on the strategies that the child-athletes of coaches and parent-coaches use to deal with their challenging experiences with regard to the dual roles.…”