Tips for Football Parents

Over the last 5 years I have delivered parent programs to parents of elite footballers, that play for Premier League and English Football League clubs. I found that no matter where I was in the country, the parents had the same concerns, fell victim to the same problems and in some cases created their own problems the same way.

This played a key role in me deciding to write the Soccology book and this blog on ‘Tips for Football Parents’. The objective is to help parents understand the system, how their behaviour affects their child and equip parents to manage situations better, improving how they support their child. 

I have purposely created 10 dos and 5 donts, as I want to put more energy in guiding you towards somewhere, as this involves development, whereas guiding you away from somewhere requires less skill.

Please note that the below is straight to the point, as I wanted to keep this piece as short as possible and I did not want to leave room for misunderstanding.

 Dos

1)        Ask your child how they feeling (after training or a match). If they want to speak about it, it is likely that they will tell you about what happened during the training session/match. Redirect them towards their feelings, for example If they say “I don’t think I played well”, ask why they thought that (“I gave the ball away too many times”), then ask how it made them feel (“when you gave the ball away, how did it make you fee? Do you think this affected you when you received the ball again”).

This makes your intentions clear, your concern is their identity as a person, not the player and your priority is their feelings.

Although you have the right intentions, sometimes you may find yourself saying things that contradict your intent. For the child it’s a speaking session, for the parent it’s a listening session - DO NOT give advice.

2)        Find out what they are saying? Asking someone how they feel is easier than having to articulate your feelings so bare this in mind. Your child may struggle to connect with their feelings in general or the pain might be so overwhelming that they dance around the topic because they do not want to unleash uncontrollable emotions.

Some people are good at hiding the emotions but no matter how good they are, they will always give you clues that something is going on. If they say they’re “okay” but their speech goes against their usual linguistic patterns, then something’s going on. Pay attention to the words, gaps between the words, pace, body language and anything that may appear different from their usual verbal and non verbal behaviour.

3)        Find out if they want to speak about their football experience. Ask your child if they would like to speak about their football experience. Those who do not wish to talk about their performance may find it too stressful to discuss, or scared of a potential conflict between parents and club that could lead to them getting released. If they say no, respect their wishes but this means you have to be more vigilant, incase there is a safeguarding issue or their wellbeing is being seriously compromised.

4)        Know when to have the conversation. Mentally record when they’re most open to have certain discussions. Discussions of discomfort, about their work, their problems etc.. When you know their environment of comfort, utilise it. Do not tell them, as this will spoil the place of comfort and they will become conscious of what you previously said, now making it a space of discomfort. Now that you made a mental note of this pace and as long as they are happy to have the conversation, keep utilising the environment that gives them the most comfort. The environment is the place and the activity.

I remember a mother in one of my parent sessions sharing that her son didn’t like to speak about his football experiences in the car on the way home however, he liked to help her cook and when he did, he couldn’t stop talking about his most recent experiences in football. I told her to keep using cooking to host the football conversations, that’s the environment of comfort for your child. The intensity of the one-to-one conversation can bring great pressure, especially when it’s something the child was not brought up having (intimate conversations). Eye contact for concentrated periods can bring great discomfort. Distracting the conscious mind (cooking) allows the unconscious mind to spill out what’s been stored. This is why you cannot tell them about their place of comfort, because you will bring it into their conscious and this process is an unconscious one.

Your child may prefer a different vehicle to cooking, find out what it is, not by asking, by observing. The child who felt comfortable talking about his experience whilst cooking didn’t know that he found it comfortable when cooking, his mum noticed the difference and she will now communicate to his core during this process. If she asked him when was a good time, he would of probably given the teenager response of “I don’t know”. Observe when and where they are most comfortable.

5)        Parent empowerment. Parents, it is important that you study the game. You travel the country and internationally to support your children and I seriously commend you for it. At the same time, I will be honest, you’re investing a lot of time, yet you do not know enough about the system. You go to the games but how can you support your child effectively if you do not know how the system works? Be informed. This is one of the reasons I wrote the Soccology book.

It’s important to learn about the system of football, not the surface of football, the depths of football. For example, learn about football intelligence, performance insecurity and anxiety, and how they all develop. It’s important to know about every facet of football, not only from opinion but from history and facts, so you can over-stand situations.

6)        Linguistics. Explain the language differences within the world of football to your child. For example, “well done” in the outside world means well done. “Well done” in the football world, means I acknowledge you. Sounds obvious but I had to explain this to a 12-year-old boy after being released by a Premier League academy, because he was left confused. He said to me “…But I don’t understand, after the games he would always say to me well done”. (This one still melts my heart).

7)        Ask specific questions at player reviews. Your child cannot work on something if you do not have the details, once you have the specifics ask the coach for ideas on how the player can develop this deficiency outside of the club. Also ask the coach when this was acknowledged as an area for development, what has been done thus far and what progress has been made. It’s a player review but treat it like parents evening at school, it’s your child’s future and you’re both investing a lot, so do not be afraid to ask questions.

However, be mindful how you ask. Coaches are human and naturally like the best of us, will get defensive when questioned about their work.

See your child’s time in football as an opportunity to take information, the information may progress them through to the first team at their current club or another club. Regardless, they’re within an elite environment, it’s important they focus on the present and soak up as much information as possible.

8)        Ask potential agents what they are doing for their worst player. Worst, not by ability but the player in the worst situation. Often agents show off a roster of their best players and people are in awe. Although the agent may of got the player to the club, it’s difficult to know what actually happened.

Your child will need an agent most when in their worst situation, situations like when they have been told their contract will not be renewed. So it’s important you judge the agent on their work during this time more than any other time.

Football is a small community, it’s likely you will know someone, who knows someone that the agent you’re speaking to represents. Seek those who are in the worse situation and find out if they feel the agent has been there for them, proactively calling clubs, successfully getting trials and maintaining the same energy as they were when they initially wanted to sign the player. Do speak to those in good situations too, because they could be the result of the agents good work!

 9)        Spread the attention! During the parent programs I deliver, I often hear about the stereotypical dad trying to coach his child in the car on their way to a game, from the side-lines and on the way home. When I ask where else is this level of attention applied there’s a silence.

Your child gets this attention as long as their playing football and if not? I’ve seen and heard of too many families fractured due to football, ensure that the intensity of interactions around your child’s football experience is not more than the parent child experience. Otherwise your child grows up with an extra coach and one less parent, I cannot stress this enough.

A good way to do a self assessment is to have a think about how much energy you invest into their school work, social life, well-being and down time.

10)   Utilise the team around the child. You may not like the coach or the club but that’s who the child has and where your child is, so make the best of it. If you let your emotions get involved, you will affect your child’s career in a negative way. If you have an issue with club staff, that you think is serious enough to escalate, escalate it and move on. Harbouring and being reactive creates more problems, problems that you will be at fault for. Teams are about working together and achieving, regardless of whether they are friends or not. It may not seem like it and it may not be the best team but club staff and parents are the TEAM around the child. Make it an effective one. The more harmonious the team, less pressure on the child and the richer the support.

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Donts

1)        Do not give them your opinion unless your child asks you for it or gave you permission to do so. They are in a high pressured environment where they are consistently being judged, your opinion is a judgement. Yes, that includes positive feedback. When the child gets used to positive feedback and then it’s not there when they play badly, it will affect them. If you are someone that always gives positive feedback as you look for the positive in every situation, your child will not be able give value to what you’re saying and will think it’s negative as you’re trying to protect them.

Remember, this is only if they do not want feedback. Some people over ride this request because they think I’m giving positive feedback so it’s okay. If they want feedback, then respect their wishes and do so.

2)        Do not bring unwanted attention, it only creates more pressure. This means not inviting people to games, setting expectations (the player sets their own) and posting on social media, ask yourself who are you doing this for? If the player wants you to do these things then it’s okay.

3)        Remember whose journey it is. When speaking about your child’s journey, refer to the journey as your child’s journey. Some parents refer to the journey as theirs, parents play a big role and are part of the journey but it isn’t their journey. When speaking about the future, I have heard some say things like “I’m not staying” (with regards to the player leaving the club), taking the power away from their child.

Their child could potentially be dealing with a stressful situation at the club and now have the added stress of worrying about what their parent will think because they want to stay at the club, but their parent wants them to leave. Also, if they follow the parents lead, this puts a lot of pressure on the parent should things fail. This has ruined families.

In some cases it’s just a misuse of vocabulary, so try to be mindful.

4)        Do not accept money from agents for your child. People naturally frown upon this but I understand times are hard. I am a realist, everyone is trying to make money. However, my specific reason for not accepting money is because agents only pay money for players they know they can make it back on, so be patient it will come!

Also, if they pay you, their objective will be to make the money back, meaning that decisions moving forward will not be about your child’s career, it will be about their investment.

5)         Do not allow your child to make uneducated decisions. Now that you’re going to study the game of football, it’s important you encourage your child to learn the game to. Otherwise they increase the room for error and this can be career threatening, I will go into this in greater depth when I do ‘Tips for Players’.

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Over the next week I will write tips for players and coaches. In the meantime, if you found this useful, you will enjoy the Soccology book. Available at all major retailers like Amazon, Waterstones, Foyles, OWN IT! And more..

If you found this useful please share as it could help someone, also join the new parent Facebook group

Thank you.

#Soccology