In a perfect world, sports coaches would be caring, considerate individuals who motivate and inspire children without resorting to screaming, put-downs, or humiliating criticism. In a perfect world, coaches would understand each child’s strengths, weaknesses, personality and then work out the best way to communicate with her to generate best results in performance and motivation. The great majority of coaches are this way. However, sometimes parents run into a coach whose idea of a motivational speech is something like, “Is that the best you wimps can do? What did I do to deserve this? With this kind of play, we might as well stop playing,” etc.

Such coaches at best are abrasive; at worst, they can be verbally abusive. Verbally abusive coaches tend to offer more criticism than praise, stick derogatory adjectives onto players, compare them negatively with others and highlight shortcomings without offering solutions. Such coaches tend to focus on their pupils’ weaknesses to get them to perform better. There is an entire school of coaches who believe that throwing a challenge or undermining a child’s abilities will cause her to try harder to “prove you wrong”.

If your child is bothered by a coach’s abrasive style, what are your options? If it’s someone who has been coaching for a while, it’s unlikely you will be able to do anything to change the coach’s behaviour. However, you can help your child understand and depersonalize his education style. This is important so that your child does not lose interest in a sport because of her coach’s behaviour. There could be several reasons why a coach adopts an aggressive and/ or abusive style.

• He could be ignorant of other ways of communication. Perhaps he was raised in a home where this was the style. Or maybe this is the way he himself was coached, and he is following in his coach’s footsteps, believing that “My coach treated me like this and I turned out okay, so I can treat my players the same way.” But what they aren’t aware is that kids have changed a lot over the years. What worked with yesterday’s children is unlikely to work today.
• Verbal abusers often behave the way they do to grab attention. Maybe the coach fears a ‘kinder, gentler’ style would be ignored by players, or wouldn’t fire them up to perform.
• Finally, there is the possibility that the coach just doesn’t like your child for some reason. Are there other players whom the coach does seem to like, or favour? If so, what are their personalities like? Do they stand up to him? Do they play better/harder/ with more passion when he yells at them? If so, then they are just feeding his belief that he’s doing his job the right way.

Abrasive coaches seldom acknowledge their behaviour and sincerely believe that being hard on players is in the latters’ best interests. Moreover there’s no shortage of coaches who believe likewise. This makes eliminating verbal abuse a challenge. Regardless of whether it is a healthy motivational tactic, many coaches, parents and experts admit it works, and makes sportspersons tough and able to handle pressure. Some of the most abrasive coaches are among the most successful.

What you can do is help your child change her reactions to the coach’s behaviour. Help your child understand that when the coach yells, her mind perceives him as a threat and naturally goes into ‘danger mode’. This causes a lot of stress. However, if your child can change her reaction from fear to compassion (“Man, it’s really sad, coach doesn’t know how to communicate better than this”), then the words won’t have as great effect. If you believe that the coach is a genuine guy who just has a communication problem, help your child focus on the content of the message, and not the way it is delivered. Ignore the tone; hear the words. The coach is a powerful figure and sometimes children get intimidated. In the process, they assume that all aspects of the coach’s behaviour are correct and might even incorporate those traits into their own personalities.

In addition to helping your child change her reactions you can also help her examine other options — such as talking to the coach about her feelings, organising a group of teammates to talk to the coach about the issue, filing a complaint with the sports director, not doing anything at all, etc. Then you can help her figure out how she wants to handle the situation. 

The important thing is that your child should decide how she wants to handle the problem, while you are the one who offers support. It is very tempting to get into a slanging match with the coach or have a one-on-one with the coach expressing your concerns about his coaching style. It is hard not to step in and take charge of the problem yourself, but remember that successfully dealing with the challenge of an abrasive coach will give your child the confidence and ability to handle other difficult people and situations she will encounter later in life.

(Dr. George Selleck is a California-based sports psychologist and advisor to Sportz Village, Bangalore)