PARENTS ARE ASSETS (so why aren't you using them?)

Most coaches treat parents as a complication to manage. The research says they're one of the most underused assets in athlete development. This article makes the case for intentional coach-parent relationships — and gives you the practical framework to build them.

Every coach has felt it — the parent walking across the pitch after a loss, the message that arrives at 10pm, the quiet resentment when families pull a player to a different club. And almost every coach's response is the same: close the door, manage the situation, move on.

But what if closing the door is the most expensive coaching decision you're making?

The research is consistent. In sport and in education, environments where adults intentionally engage families produce better outcomes for young people — higher engagement, stronger sense of belonging, lower dropout. And the coaches operating in those environments? They report less stress, not more.

This isn't about parent management. It's about rethinking who's in your coaching environment and what they're capable of contributing.

The bias you haven't acknowledged

Before any conversation about coach-parent relationships can be honest, you need to surface the assumptions already shaping yours.

What do you actually believe about sports parents? Not what you'd say in a coach education session — what you actually believe when a parent's number flashes on your phone at the wrong moment?

Most coaches carry a default model: parents as outsiders, as emotional, as people who don't understand the game. And in some cases, that model gets confirmed. But it becomes the lens through which every parent interaction is filtered — including the majority of parents who are level-headed, invested, and genuinely want to help.

Acknowledging that bias isn't a weakness. It's the prerequisite for everything that follows.

Parents are subjective experts in your athletes

Here's the reframe that changes the dynamic: parents are the experts in their own children. They know their athlete's sleep, their mood on the drive to training, what happened at school, what they're afraid of, what lights them up.

That information is directly relevant to your coaching. And right now, in most programmes, it goes entirely unused.

The reason isn't lack of willingness. It's that no one has built a relationship in which that information flows naturally. Parents don't offer it because they don't feel welcomed into the conversation. Coaches don't ask for it because they're already overwhelmed with the session in front of them.

The cost of that gap falls on the athlete.

What parents actually want from you

Here's the data point coaches consistently underestimate: when asked whether they'd prefer their child's coach to receive education in the game or in interpersonal skills, 64% of parents choose interpersonal skills.

Not tactics. Not technical knowledge. People skills.

"What parents ultimately need — and I've talked to hundreds of thousands of them over 15 years — is to know that a coach cares about their child as a person more than an athlete."

This doesn't mean you need a weekly newsletter or monthly parent evenings. It means: do you know the first names of the parents on your team? Can you say, "Good morning — how's your week going?" and mean it? That level of interaction — small, consistent, personal — is enough to establish trust. And that trust, the research shows, creates measurable differences in athlete development outcomes.

Boundaries are what make belonging possible

One of the most counterintuitive findings in the sense of community research is that clear boundaries are not a barrier to belonging — they're a prerequisite for it.

Parents need to know when the door is open and when it's not. When it's appropriate to approach you and when it isn't. What your communication commitments are. What's in scope and what isn't.

That clarity doesn't distance parents from your environment. It lets them settle into it. When people know the rules, they can participate confidently. When they don't, they either push too hard or pull back entirely — and both of those look like difficult parents.

Establishing that framework is your job, not theirs.

The belonging gap in your club

Most clubs that survey their athletes and parents find a recognisable pattern: high scores on feeling accepted, treated well, and personally safe; significantly lower scores on feeling involved in decisions and having genuine influence.

That gap matters. Belonging that is warm but passive tends to be fragile. When results drop, or a controversial decision gets made, parents and athletes without real investment in the environment are the first to leave.

The harder work — player-led debriefs, genuine consultation on training approach, two-way feedback loops — addresses that gap. It doesn't mean coaches lose control of their environment. It means athletes and families feel enough ownership to stay in it.

One thing to do before your next session

Learn the first name of one parent you don't currently know. Use it when they arrive. That's it for this week.

"Small changes in adult behaviour can dramatically change a child's experience in sport."

The coaches who get parent engagement right aren't running elaborate programmes. They're making different small decisions, consistently, over a long time. Start with one.