The 5 Ways Youth Soccer Directors Can Foster a Healthy Parent Culture

In youth soccer, the player and the parent(s) should be considered as one entity.?

Every youth soccer club and its leaders would benefit from thinking in these terms because development is something that transcends a soccer pitch and requires everyone moving in the same direction. The youth player, for the most part, reflects the environments (and the people) they are most in contact with. So if we want to develop the player toward their potential, we have to find ways to maximize the conditions for this to occur.

In order to move our players closer to their potential, our youth soccer directors must find ways to foster a better parent culture that engenders trust and understanding.

Here are 5 ways any youth soccer leader can create and maintain a healthy parent culture:

1. Make Your Vision Explicit

It's the most obvious, but the most overlooked aspect.?

Many parents walk into a new club without fully understanding what that club provides. When the vision isn't explicit, parents fill in the gaps with vanity metrics (such as wins, starts, exposure, etc.) or anything else that fills the gap. Your club needs an onboarding process for both new and established families so that there are no surprises on their end when the season comes.?

Great directors eliminate any gray areas right from the start.

2. Make That Same Vision Explicit Often

One preseason talk about vision doesn't have a long shelf-life.?

The ideas and processes that facilitate long-term development are not common knowledge. Directors should find ways to schedule monthly or bi-monthly meetings when they or their coaches reeducate everyone on the vision and share positive examples of some of the fruits the vision has borne to this point. The main purpose of these meetings is to keep the vision top of mind, convince parents that the vision is truly a priority, and share some small wins from the past month.?

Directors build credibility when they continue to touch base and demonstrate the merits of the vision.

3. Create Constraints Around Sideline Behavior

Parents need to be developed too.

Which makes this step the most challenging to implement because what a director is implicitly doing is teaching their parents how to be better parents. Setting up rules around sideline behavior during practices and matches is another way of not just making your vision explicit, but reiterating parents role in helping make the vision real. How parents ultimately behave during or immediately after a match is out of your control; they are autonomous adults who will do what they want to do.?

Sadly, you will lose some families because of this, but more importantly, you'll protect the families who are truly bought into your vision.

4. Create Club Nights That Build Culture

Take the soccer out of it and connect on another level.?

Bring your club together for a big outdoor cookout at the local park or a rented facility where parents and players from across the club can connect when soccer is not the primary focus. We all yearn for community and true connection. These sorts of events not only help with that, but they provide evidence of the sport's holistic power to be a vessel for greater things, which includes building a strong community.?

The game is what brought us together, but it's important to provide events that show your club is more than just a soccer club.

5. Find Ways to Celebrate Small Wins Often

Do everything you can to celebrate the small wins of growth with everyone at the club.?

Every club should have a bi-weekly email newsletter (or something like that) where directors are showing and celebrating small wins from across the club. It can be something concrete like a player committing to a college to play soccer or how the U12 team connected a team record 20 passes in a row this past week. It is also just another clever way to continue to keep the vision top of mind and build greater trust with the parents and players you serve.?

Celebrating the small wins gives its people the energy to keep the club iterating toward its potential.

Final Words

These suggestions will help foster a better parent culture, but remember there will always be a few people who won't agree with the vision.?

And that's okay.?

Your vision won't be for everyone. Development is a two-way street and requires cooperation on both sides, and this truth hurts, especially when a parent is the main hurdle for the child's long-term development. But you can never budge from the vision because placating parents that will never really "get it" inadvertently affects the development of the players and parents who have bought into your vision.?

Development is an art, but implementing these 5 positive constraints into your club is a great way to get club, player and parent moving in the same direction.

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