COACHING

Coaching, Parenting and Teaching –

Is There Any Difference?

Neville Bleakley

THE athletes with whom many Australian coaches first cut their coaching teeth are often their aspiring children, or a team/squad of tyros with whom their offspring might be associated. Parents as volunteer coaches have been the mainstay of coaching of any sport in Australia, no matter what the sport’s profile may be. It’s also true that some of Australia’s best coaches – in Orienteering and many other sports – are (or have been) trained teachers.

Coaching – an Extension of the Parenting Instinct

I believe that coaching is like parenting – even at the advanced level. I know that it’s not often portrayed that way in the media, but that’s because such a notion doesn’t make a good story – any more than being a successful parent does. It’s only when something extraordinary happens - for better or worse - that there’s a story that the media want to use.

The Nature of Coaching

It’s useful to consider the stages of skill acquisition of a developing athlete. It’s usually described in sporting literature as having three stages, in the following order: 1. Understanding. The athlete is taught what it is he/she has to do to participate in the sport; 2. Association. The athlete learns what skills are associated with success in the sport. This can be a very exciting time, and a very timeconsuming one. It can also last a long time. Notions such as “talented” start to emerge (with all their consequences). 3. Autonomy. The athlete becomes mechanically efficient and co-ordinated, and learns to process information very quickly, “without thinking”. Observers start to use such words as “co-ordinated”, “smooth”, “effortless” and “appears to have all the time in the world” to describe some athletes. Dedication to the sport is a trait that emerges here – if it hasn’t already – because the athlete must make the effort to test his/her skills in a world that contains distractions, adverse conditions and external factors of many kinds. It’s in this stage that an athlete’s performances are judged against the performances of others – sometimes in a way that is critical. The athlete also has to deal with the expectations of others, including friends, parents, other athletes and coaches. This is the stage where relationships are most at risk of breaking down.

Parenting

Parents, do you recognize the above? Is that scenario any different to parenting? From my experience as a parent of two (who are each now parents of two of their own), I think not. I think most parents could relate to those stages in the development of their offspring.

Parents as Coaches

So why is it that we find many parents coaching in stages one and two above, but very few at stage three (the “elite” stage)? One answer is that parents lack the technical skill and experience to do the job, unless they have been elites themselves. However, consider the following proposition: when a “talented” child reaches the age where the child’s talents outstrip those of the parent (which is common enough), does the parent stop being a parent? No. A dutiful parent will adopt a different parenting role, one that will support offspring in their endeavours, using others to provide expert support when/where needed - music teachers, gym teachers, dance teachers and the like. There’s every reason why a parent should take on the role of a high performance coach, because that’s what high performance coaches do – they organize experts in relevant areas to support their athletes in what they need to develop. In English soccer they call such people “managers”. It’s always seemed a better term to me because they are fundamentally managers of people.

Teachers as Coaches

Teachers probably have a head start over others because teachers receive extensive training for their role. The first rule of teaching – albeit oversimplified – goes something like this: “It doesn’t matter what you do, it’s what your pupils can do that matters”. Teachers are taught how to teach others to develop themselves, just like we high performance coaches have to do for our athletes. It’s not we coaches who are performing on the world’s stage whilst trying to cope with the realities of life: bank balances, relationships, careers and the like. It’s our athletes that have to do it. We organize the support crew.

Parents vs Teachers as Coaches

Formal training in parenting doesn’t exist, as far as I know. If it did, I wonder how much would come from the manual of training of a modern teacher?

Qualifications for Coaching

I have argued that parenting is preparation for coaching because parenting trains a person in how to support another person’s development, albeit by the BE (Bachelor of Experience) route. It follows that those who are both parents and trained teachers have the ideal preparation for coaching. The big problem is – after doing all that – can they muster enough energy to do it all over again? Coaching can be so rewarding, but who coaches (supports) the coach?

ORIENTEERING PUBLICATIONS

IOF Publications

International Specifications for‑Orienteering Maps . . . . . . . . . . $11 .00 Competition rules for IOF events . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $11 .00 Control Descriptions . . . . . . . . . . . . $11 .00 Simple Maps for Orienteering . . . . $11 .00 Trail Orienteering (BOF book) . . . . . $30 .00 Trail Orienteering (booklet) . . . . . . . . $8 .25 Trail O (leaflet) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $0 .70

Australian Publications

Elementary Orienteering Instructors‑Manual $13 .20 Level 1 Coaching Manual . . . . . . . . $22 .00 Level 1 Coaching Syllabus . . . . . . . . $3 .90 Level 2 Coaching Syllabus . . . . . . . . $4 .40 Level 3 Coaching Syllabus . . . . . . . . $4 .40 Among the Best Orienteers (video) $19 .75 Sponsorship & Advertising, 1996 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . available from states

Club Guide, available on disc .

Prices include GST and postage within Australia for single copies. Prices for bulk orders available on request. Orders should be addressed to Orienteering Australia, PO Box 740, Glebe, NSW 2037, with cheques made payable to Orienteering Australia. Email: orienteering@dsr.nsw.gov.au