parent training

As each Fall athletic season begins and boys are recruited into (or placed onto) various school and county leagues, my voicemail and e-mail Inbox receive an inevitable bombardment of concerns from pare nts about the “best coach.” Parents often have the same concern season-upon-season: “My sons’ coach is mean and I don’t think he can succeed with someone mean;” “His self-esteem is being harmed;” and of course, “What should we do?” I rarely hear from the parents who love their sons’ coaches: obviously, they have no complaints. In an effort to address the question of what makes a “perfect” coach, I turned to parents who love their sons’ coaches, talked with coaches, looked at the recent research on the effects of athletic coaching styles on boys, and sought the advice of a life coach (*I should note that while there are many similarities about coaching boys and girls, the differences illustrated in research literature are strong enough to separate the topics, and focus on only coaching boys in this article.)