When watching a game, quite often, parents want to shout instructions to their player in order to help them play better or avoid making mistakes. However, this often works against what we as coaches are trying to do. As a coach, you want your players taking chances and making mistakes as this is the best way for the players to learn and become better players. Like a parent, it can be painful for a coach to watch the player make a mistake, but it's the best thing for them. Every situation in soccer is an opportunity for learning, especially when it comes to making mistakes. Your natural instincts, as a parent, are to try and help your child avoid mistakes in their life when you can. So, when I say that we as coaches want the players to make mistakes, it works counter to what the parent's natural instincts are. This can cause conflict between the coach and the parents. Hopefully, I can explain the coaches perspective in all of this to help parents gain a better understanding.
First and foremost, all players should receive instructions from their coaches. Even parents that have had prior playing and coaching experience aren't fully aware of what the coach is doing or trying to accomplish with the team. So, when the parent starts shouting instructions to their players during the game, the instructions can be counter to what the coach wants the player to be doing, which also impacts the team as the player is not doing what the rest of the team is expecting. Coaches can't expect every player to do things exactly as they want the player to do, but if the player is trying to do what the coach asks within the framework of the team, the player's teammates are better able to compensate for a mistake as they are aware of what the player was trying to do.
Second, and this is a very difficult discussion, has to do with parents being aware of what they say during a game and how they say it. I often hear parents not only yelling instructions, but doing so in a tone that will cause their player to feel bad about what they are doing. While I feel parents should be able to express disappointment in something their child does, soccer is not the place for the parent to do that. Players will often come off the field feeling bad about what they've done or a mistake that they've made because their parent expressed disappointment. For the most part, kids don't want to disappoint their parents, so you can get into a situation where the player stops trying as a way to prevent their parent from being disappointed in them. This not only creates friction during the game, but that friction can often carry over to the ride home or while the family is together at home. In my view, participation in a sport should be the last thing that causes a child to feel that they have disappointed their parent. There are far too many other more important things to worry about and focus on. Unfortunately, in some extreme situations, soccer causes the player to develop a real tension with their parent, and this can grow and become a real problem. In worst case scenarios, players can walk away from the game emotionally scarred. That's an extreme case, but it can happen, and I have seen it.
Third, many parents feel that it is their right to yell instructions to their play because it is their child, after all. We, as coaches, are assigned to coach the players during practices and games, and we should be the sole voice the players look to during a game. This can be very difficult for some parents. However, this is often what is best for the player. When we had a parent meeting for the high school soccer team this year, the athletic director talked about a speaker who talked about parents "releasing" their player to the coach and program. What is meant by that is that the parent places full trust in the coach and program, and lets their child deal with the coach, team, practices, and games. That's not to say that there aren't times and situations where it's appropriate for the parent to be involved. However, there have been many examples, including former players, that will tell you that when they were "released" to the coach and program, their playing experience was exceptional. There was even one situation where the speaker talked about "releasing" kids to the sport and experience, and afterwards, players that attended the speech walked up and thanked the speaker because once their parents "released" them, the whole environment surrounding the game was much more pleasant for both the players and the parents.
Last, but certainly not least, when the parents allow the coach to be the sole source of instruction to the players, the parents are showing a level of trust and confidence in the coach. Every coach will tell you that they make mistakes, and the really good coaches are willing to admit those mistakes to players and parents in an appropriate manner. As coaches, we all try to get the parents to place their trust in what we're trying to do. And, in some situations, when parents are repeatedly yelling instructions to the players on the field, the coach views that in a way that the parents don't trust the coach to do their job. That's probably not the message parents are trying to send, but that's how it's received by the coaches in some cases.
Soccer is a sport, and is played for enjoyment. It should not be a source of conflict or discourse in the family. If that's the case, it may be time to re-evaluate why the child is playing the sport, and what they are trying to accomplish by playing the sport. At the end of the day, it's about young athletes making mistakes, which help them grow both as a person and a player.
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