Get To Know Your Youth Football Parents
It’s that time of the year when the only thing standing between a youth football coach and practice is the 4th of July holiday. You have likely already had signups and have organized your teams in your league. This is why we want to spend some time looking at your youth football parents.
This is not going to be an article about the parents who are badly behaved. We understand they are out there and should be kept as far from your program as possible.
Today, we want to focus on how to make your youth football parents an asset. It has been our experience that if you embrace them as a positive part of your program, they can be exactly that. There are several degrees with how this can happen, but at the very basic level, keeping them informed is essential.
Have you already notified your youth football parents about your practice schedule? The sooner they know the better at planning they can be. You are not going to be able to head off every family vacation. However, if your parents know the schedule it at least gives you a chance.
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Transportation to and from practice is also a big one. Can everyone on your NFL Flag football team get to and from practice? The better coordinated you are with your teams’ parents, the better chance you are going to have of practicing with your full group. If you are practicing without your best players or without a lot of your players then it defeats the purpose.
Understand Who You Are Coaching…
Having the proper equipment is always a concern particularly with your Pop Warner tackle football team. It’s essential that your parents understand what equipment is required to safely play the game. You are always going to have a range of economic backgrounds on your team. The earlier your parents are informed about the the required equipment, the better chances you will have of sidestepping any issues without embarrassing the young player or the parents.
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The last point we want to make may raise some eyebrows. Before we get to it, please know that we understand that you don’t want all parents involved with your program or team. However; you will also be surprised that if you just ask your youth football parents, you will find willing and able assistant coaches. These are normally folks who just cannot or will not take the lead role with the teams’ coaching but will be more than able to help out as an assistant coach at practice.
There Are Several Layers To How You Can Involve Your Youth Football Parents
Having assistant youth football coaches makes all the difference in the world with having a good practice. Without them you are going to have a lot of standing around in lines as your team goes through drills. That is never a good thing and a sure fire way to lose your young team’s attention quickly.
Of course, they should go through the appropriate certification procedures. Our friends over at USA Football can help you with that. As we progress into how to set up and organize practice in the next few weeks, you will see how important it is to have help if you want your team to be constantly learning and working instead of standing around. This allows your team to learn core position fundamentals during practice too.
This is something we will dive deeper into later. In the meantime we suggest you start doing some research on your youth football parents. It will pay big dividends in about a month.
