Communication

As youth coaches, good communication with youth athletes and sports parents are important.

Communicating with youth athletes go beyond providing technical feedback on court. An effective relationship with athletes contain a wide array of elements such as empathic understanding, honesty, support, liking, acceptance, responsiveness, friendliness, cooperation, care, respect and positive regard (Jowett & Cockerill, 2003; Jowett & Meek, 2000) that can all be conveyed with action and words, on and off the court. By having good communication with youth athletes and managing this relationship well, it sets up a good foundation for achieving greater things like winning championships, learning life skills and positive psychological health.

Implications for poor communication

• Conflict between youth coaches with athletes or youth coaches with parents.

• Youth athletes dropping out from sport

• Youth athlete having psychological effects like depression and low confidence

Tips on how to communicate and motivate youth (Richards, 2016)

• Offer motivational feedback, praise effort, be direct, be sincere when praising and genuine.

• When talking to kids, do so at their height level to appear less intimidating

• Focus on development and growth of the youth not only as an athlete but also as a person. This can be done so by showing positive attitude like:

• empathic understanding – of bad situations athlete could be facing

• support, friendliness, respect, care and positive regard – towards athlete

• cooperation – with athlete

• Connect with youth athlete before correcting. This will help the youth athletes be more receptive to feedback even if it is negative.

• Beware of body language, emotional impact and send positive messages.

• Show that you are listening, send clear message and be direct.

References

Jowett, S. & Cockerill, I.M. (2003). Olympic medallists’ perspective of the athlete–
coach relationship. Psychology of Sport and Exercise, 4, 313–331.

Jowett, S. & Meek, G.A (2000). The coach–athlete relationship in married couples: An exploratory content analysis. The Sport Psychologist, 14, 157–175.

Richards, R., Dr. (2016, April). Engaging Parents in Sport. Retrieved July 20, 2017, from https://www.clearinghouseforsport.gov.au/knowledge_base/sport_participation/community_engagement/engaging_parents_in_sport

Further readings How youth coaches can communicate better with parents How to communicate with players, parents and officials Youth coaches to connect with students, finding out what they want in sport How can coaches improve their communication skills