Raising Elite Competitors

#1 Rule for Coaching Your Own Kid (Without Ruining the Relationship)

• Coach Bre • Season 2 • Episode 267

If you are a mom who also coaches your daughter, this episode is a must-listen. This dynamic can be tricky , and it often leaves you questioning if it's helping or hurting your relationship. Learn the single most important rule to maintain and protect your bond, turning the experience into a positive one for you both!

🎯 Key Takeaways from Coach Bre

  • Acknowledge the Difficulty: If your daughter is in middle or high school, acknowledge that being the coach's kid is a tough situation with more scrutiny.
  • Mom vs. Coach: Mom is comfort and security, while Coach is correction and strategy. Be clear about when she is hearing each voice.
  • The Matrix Activity: Create a matrix with your daughter to define what "Mom sounds like" and what "Coach sounds like" in different scenarios (like pre-game, post-game, and timeouts).
  • Give Her the Choice: Identify settings, like the car ride home, where she gets to choose if she wants to hear from Mom or Coach.
  • The #1 Rule (Sacred Space): Create a sacred space (like the dinner table) that is off-limits to talking about the game. This is essential for preventing burnout and protecting the relationship.
  • The Most Important Thing: Remember your relationship with your daughter is the most important thing, so always be checking in.

Is the car ride home causing you more stress than joy? The Elite Competitor Program is the playbook for sports moms. We equip you with the tools to guide her to confidence.

We help sports moms strengthen their daughter's mental game so she believes in herself as much as you do. Learn more about the Elite Mental Game program, which teaches athletes skills to show up confidently and deal with the ups and downs of their sport.

Episode Highlights: 

[00:00:00] Learn the #1 rule for coaching your own daughter to keep the experience positive and preserve your relationship, addressing the tricky coach/mom dynamic.

[00:00:22] A shout-out to Kim, a mom in the ECP community, who experienced a "transformational" car ride home after completing Phase One of the mental training program with her daughter.

[00:01:08] Discover how the ECP's mental training program teaches athletes skills like showing up confidently and recovering from mistakes faster, preventing them from "crumbling" on the car ride home.

[00:02:41] Understand the fundamental difference: Mom = comfort and security, Coach = criticism, correction, and coaching. Older athletes often get these roles "crossed."

[00:03:10] The most tangible activity to separate the roles: Create a "mom/coach matrix" with your daughter to define what each role sounds like in specific scenarios.

[00:04:35] Establish situations where your daughter gets to choose her communication mode (Mom or Coach), such as the car ride home (e.g., using a scrunchie as a visual signal ).

[00:04:50] The #1 rule to protect your relationship: Create a sacred space where talking about the game is off-limits to prevent burnout and a tough dynamic.

[00:05:50] A critical final reminder: Your relationship with your daughter is the most important thing, so constantly check if coaching is helping or hurting it.

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If you are a mom who also coaches your daughter, this episode is for you. You already know how tricky this dynamic can be, and sometimes it's like, is this even worth it? Is this helping our relationship or hurting it? Now I'm going to go into my number one tip and rule. If you do coach your own kids so that you don't ruin the relationship, and it can be something that is wonderful and beautiful and all those fun things in this episode. Now, before I get into it, I wanna give a shout out to a mom in our community. A mom who knows what it's like to have a daughter who's in the car ride home, maybe beating herself up, and as a mom and a coach. Those situations are hard. Do you deal with it as a coach or as a mom? Well, Kim is her name, this mom that I want to give a shout out to in our community because she posted this inside our private community. So my daughter had her first practice today after we both completed phase one of the elite mental game. So her daughter is going through our mental training program, and part of our mental training program is for moms as well. She said OMG, transformational. We have the best conversation we've had in years on the drive home. And I haven't seen her this energized and empowered in a long time. Thank you. All right. This is really cool because inside our mental training program, athletes learn skills to show up confidently. Take it over mistakes faster just to kinda to deal with the ups and downs of their sport without getting in that car ride home and just like crumbling. And you're like, how do I, how do I help her through this? But at the same time, you as a parent are also learning skills to be able to navigate those hard situations with your daughter so that you're building her confidence and mental game throughout it. So Kim, you just perfectly described how beautiful this can be when you're learning your skills, she's learning hers and it can totally transform that car ride home. So. Speaking in the car ride home moms that are coaches know it all too well. And so I wanna get into this dynamic a little bit. And one of the things that I recommend, there's actually a few important tips, and this is what we also help moms with inside our program, the elite mental game, because we do have a lot of moms who are also coaches. And one of the things I like to say right on the bat is. Depending on the age of your daughter, you are gonna wanna tell her that you're putting her in a tricky situation. If your daughter's in middle school and in high school, you just gotta lay it out like being your coach. I am putting you in a little bit of a tough situation because coaches', kids don't have it easy. Everyone's kind of scrutinizing them a little bit more. Like the spotlight is a little bit more on them. They have to be more perfect than everybody else. Now, that's not actually true, but it just kind of seems like that. So I think just laying it out that, it can be a tough dynamic, I think is important just for the both of you to recognize. Now, once you kinda get that outta the way, I don't think you need to describe this. If you're like coaching your daughter's 8-year-old soccer team, you know, we don't need to go there. But what you do need to say to those younger kids is that. I'm your mom, but I'm also your coach, which is pretty cool. But it's gonna sound different for me to be mom than it is for me to be coach because even the older athletes get this kind of crossed where they see Mom and what they expect from mom because mom is, mom is like the comfort and the security and you know, it just sounds differently than Coach. And when they see mom, but hear coach, which is inherently some more criticism and coaching and correction and things like that, it doesn't always land if they don't. Expect it. Okay, so part of this is just helping kind of tease that out in, in their brains. Now, the more tangible activity that I highly recommend is you sit down with your athlete, get a piece of paper at the top of the piece of paper, you're gonna write mom, and you're gonna write coach down the side. You're gonna create kind of a matrix. You're gonna write all the situations that you are in with your daughter. So pre-game. During game timeout, post-game, car ride, home dinner table, like come up with all of these, scenarios that you're in with your daughter and you can potentially be mom or you could potentially be coach. And for each setting you're going to work with your daughter. To come up with what does mom sound like in this setting and what does coach sound like? So for example, pre-game mom is probably going to sound encouraging. And we teach moms in our program. If you're gonna say something to your daughter before a game, make sure it's short and sweet and in her control. And, you come up with your phrase, like, whatever your go-to phrase is, that she just comes to expect from you and give her a fist bump, hug, whatever you do. Okay? But a coach is gonna sound very different. As a coach myself, pregame. I'm not doing that with my athletes. I, I'm encouraging them, but no, I'm not just saying like, go get'em. I'm giving them tactics and strategies. We're talking about the game plan. I'm talking about what each specific athlete needs to work on in that game. Like it's a lot more coaching because I'm the coach. And so for every one of these settings you're going to do that. So write out like what mom sounds like and what coach sounds like, and then you tell her. There are some settings where you don't get to choose if you get mom or coach, like in a timeout in a game, you're gonna hear coach so expect that it's going to sound like this. Even though I am mom and I look like mom, this is what it's gonna sound like. But there are other settings where you get to choose, like in the car ride home, you can choose if you want me to talk to you as coach or mom. And to make it even easier, some athletes like put a scrunchie on their wrist if they want to hear from mom and then take it off if they wanna hear from coach. And the number one rule that I would recommend is. Create some sort of sacred space for the dinner table or maybe the car ride home, whatever it is for you, where we're not talking about the game. I think that's really important.'cause it can be easy for moms who are coaches to just kind of like let the game take over and let coaching take over the whole life. And then that can lead to. Burnout and can lead to a tough dynamic with your relationship. And so whatever that is for you, I want you to create a space with your daughter that like a kind of a pact. This is the space that we're not talking about the game, it's, we can talk about anything else. But just having that relief of this is kind of a sacred space. Maybe the dinner table or whatever it is, you guys decide together what that is for you. And I just highly recommend that even if you're not having any like. Issues per se with your daughter and being her coach yet. I think protecting that is really good just for the longevity of her playing the sport and you being her coach. So decide with your daughter what that's going to be. Alright, I hope that this was helpful. Remember last thing your relationship with her is. The most important thing. So obviously you wanna always be checking in, is this hurting or helping our relationship? And that's the decision that only you can make. But hopefully these couple of things that I've suggested here will help maintain and protect that relationship so that you can have this really positive experience coaching your daughter throughout her sport. All right, moms, I'll see you in the next episode of the Raising Elite Competitors podcast.