Navigating the Parent-Coach Balance

I'm delighted to speak with Mia KurtzFavero this week. Mia and I discuss a research paper she co-authored which explored the parent-coach dual role.

In the paper a number of parent-coaches were interviewed to examine how they perceived their dual role to influence their coaching effectiveness and to hear what strategies they used to remain effective.

Previous research looking into youth sport coaching indicates that a majority of coaches may also be a parent to an athlete on their team. While previous studies have also sought to understand how being a parent-coach might affect parents' relationships with their own child(ren), little work appears to explore how occupying this role might affect an individual's ability to remain effective as a coach. Findings from the paper indicated that parent-coaches have few formalised resources to aid them in navigating the issues associated with their challenging dual-role position. Given the number of parent-coaches in youth, more research needs to be done on this topic.

Mia has just completed her Master's degree in Sport Psychology. Her studies focused on coaching, specifically, helping coaches develop their inter and intra personal skills.

Mia is a coach of volleyball, coaching club teams and high school teams, as well as the provincial youth boy's volleyball team.