Teaching your Child to be Coachable with Experienced Coach Stephanie Britt
When your child begins their first extracurricular activity, it can be a difficult transition watching another authoritative figure guide their progress. However, there are many steps parents can take to ensure their child thrives in an educational environment.
Stephanie Britt is the owner and head coach of Cheer Savannah Inc. located in Pooler, Georgia. With extensive experience she provides her top tips on how to make your child more coachable and drive them towards success.
Remain Supportive
As a parent, you play a major role in supporting your child’s development both in and out of the home, and extracurricular activities are no different. There are certain attitudes toward coaching that can help your child as they begin their relationship with a coach. Stephanie Britt explains that the first is to let them know how important it is to learn from others who have more experience than themselves. A big component of being ‘coachable’, lies in the desire to learn from others and then apply that within your own sport or practice.
Fuel Motivation
It is natural to focus on all of the areas of your sport that need improvement, but it can be just as useful to focus on successes to keep you motivated. Like anyone, children need reassurance and confidence building compliments that let them know they are doing a great job. Try to cite specific examples of how your child has been successful or made progress within their sport, this will give them the confidence to push the envelope even further. Stephanie Britt explains that there is a delicate balance that has to happen, and too much praise and too little criticism, and too little praise and too much criticism, can both hamper your child’s ability to be coachable. Make sure that both your praise and criticism are both constructive, and don’t seek to just validate or judge their actions.
Ensure Constructive Criticism
Most people do not like to receive criticism, no matter what shape or form it comes in. However, this is something that can be developed and worked through with some practice. Stephanie Britt explains that having an open dialogue with your child is crucial and opening yourself up to criticism from your child is a great way to set an example; try asking them how you could improve on something and respond constructively and try putting it into action. This is a skill you can start to cultivate with your child from an early age, and will help them work with other team members, but especially with their coaches. Looking for the positive in every negative situation will slowly become force of habit and is far more likely to end in success for your child.
A big part of receiving negative criticism and failure is being able to pick yourself up and move on. It is important to cultivate a success mindset in your child. There is no such thing as failure, only lessons. Strengthening this narrative within your child’s education will give them the ambitious mindset they need to succeed (and will make them a dream to coach!).
