If you’re a coach who works at an academy, camp, or clinic for young athletes, you know how important it is to keep parents in the loop on their child’s development.
Often, this is done through monthly or weekly reports, written up by you, the coach, or sporadic phone calls/texts. These reports/feedback include key learnings, challenges, and practice plans that the parent can help enforce.
In fact, these reports are often the ONLY between coaches and parents. And realistically, there’s no way you can accurately communicate EVERYTHING in a short summary or ad hoc calls/texting/emails..
There’s just SO much that goes on between a coach and athlete during a practice session. And often, the last thing you want to do is give highly detailed notes on every key detail that may be relevant to their solo practice.
In other words, parents are usually left in the dark.
Any information they get about a session comes directly from their athlete. And let’s be real.. If that athlete is a kid, the information they retain is rarely accurate and complete.
So the challenge becomes - how do you keep parents informed in an objective, focused manner, while not getting bogged down in tons of administrative work?
I’m sure you see where this is going.
One of the many reasons
academies and organizations love CoachNow is the fact that it provides what I’d call “passive transparency”.
When coaches post in CoachNow Spaces during their training sessions, parents can follow along (if they are a member of the Space), see how things are going, and understand that progress is being made. They don’t have to rely on their kid’s memory to stay informed.
This is especially true for coaches who get in the habit of filming
session recaps. The information from these recaps ensure that parents know the key takeaways and can reference those takeaways at any time.
The best part? Now you don’t have to spend an entire day creating reports or spending your “off-duty” hours making phone calls and writing emails..
When you stay on top of posting in your space, all of the pertinent information that you need is already being collected automatically. And just like that, all of your monotonous reporting is gone.
The parents love this too.
Letting them see you in action gives them greater appreciation for the work you do. And better conveys the goals, hopes, and dreams you have for the athlete, AND how they can play a supporting role as parent(s).
In other words, it gives them a shared vision of where the athlete is going.
And it’s especially helpful in the initial onboarding period. If you share your plan in CoachNow, you can easily get an early buy-in from everyone involved.
As I’ve said before, the plan should include expectations for both you and your athlete’s - e.g. what technology you’re going to use, how you’re going to communicate, what checkpoints you’ll have to measure success, etc.
I go over this step in detail in this post.
This is all a part of proactive communication that will save you TONS of time if implemented correctly.
Because parents often ask lots of questions when they feel in the dark - and that time adds up fast if you have lots of athletes.
With CoachNow, they can monitor progress and shared goals without needing to involve you every step of the way.
This also enables parents to see deeper into the dynamic relationship that takes place between their athlete and the coach. In turn, they’ll better appreciate the work being put in by both of you and for the opportunities it provides them to help (rather than hurt the coaching relationship).
—
Ultimately, bridging the gap between parents and coaches will help improve communication, save everyone time, and strengthen the coach/athlete relationship.
If both parties can put in extra effort to ensure that they’re on the right track, everybody will be happier and more confident knowing that the athlete has all of the right tools for their own, individualized success.
CoachNow is the perfect solution for passive transparency, fostering deeper parent-coach relationships, and saving you tons of time in administrative work.
If you think your organization would benefit from CoachNow,
please submit an application at this link. We offer custom pricing plans based on the size and unique needs of our business.