TENNIS TRIANGLE: ATHLETE – PARENTS – COACH

How can all three participants (athlete, parents, coach) work together in a sports situation?

It should be emphasized that tennis triangle is extremely important in the development of a young tennis player. It often breaks down with the coach and the parents. If the coach doesn’t know what role to assign to the parents, then the parents don’t know how to behave in competitions and what their roles are. It happens often that parents who want informations from the coach, but don’t receive it, begin to encroach on the coach’s authority, which leads to conflict and tension within the triangle, whose ”victim” in this case is the child (athlete).

Players are under a lot of pressure during matches. They are standing alone in their part of the court, they have that feeling that all eyes are staring at them and on the other side of the net stands the opponent they face. All internal and external factors affect the athlete. When coaches, parents and athletes are well aware of their role and task, they reduce pressure, tension and stress that can otherwise arise.

Due to lack of preparation, parents can also fall under stress. Their role is very important and they face a lot of demands when a child joins a particular sport. Among the many tasks that parents should perform, two are important:

accepting and controlling your emotions,
to equip their child to cope with stress.
- (not how to avoid or get rid of it.)

It’s important that the coach answers the parents questions, suggests some literature and shows some basic content of tennis. Parents are thereby more involved in the tennis world and will enjoy it more, as they’ll know it well. But this doesn’t mean that they must interfere with the work and role of the coach. They should enjoy the matches as spectators and not as experts. If parents do intervene as tennis experts, it quickly happens that they identify too much with the players’s role and that the child’s success or failure is attributed to themselves. It is called reverse identification, Smith and Smoll (1996).

Every parent identifies with their child to some extent and therefore wants what is best for them. If the identification is extreme, the child becomes an extension of the parents, which means that they determine their own achievement based on the child’s success. With this, parents take away the child’s value. Since children are at home “24/7”, it’s they who identify with their parents and not the other way around.

We can lessen the identification of the parent by talking to them and agreeing that pressuring the child doesn’t have a good effect on their overall role. If it ever happens, I often tell parents to ask their child the following: Why did you decide to play tennis? Many times the child’s answer is: ”Because I like it.” Because it is fun and enjoyable. This is the biggest advantage that parents should not take away from their child if they really want what is best for them. Parents and coaches must recognize the child’s right to develop his/her sporting potential in an environment that emphasizes cooperation, personal growth and fun.

Now let’s see what are some roles of each individual in this magical tennis triangle.

Players:

to talk about their feelings and concerns with parents and coaches,
to learn sportsmanship and ethics,
to attain school and other obligations,
to make an effort to achieve their goals,
to develop in areas that are important in their tennis progression.

Parents:

that they give emotional support to the child and a sense of trust to the coach,
that they give positive incentives regardless of failure,
to implant confidence in the child and strengthen positive principles,
to hold on educationally important things,
that after the player’s (child’s) “bad” performance, they accept the result and show that they still love them the most.

Coaches

to teach players appropriate attitude and sports discipline,
to prepare long-term and short-term plans for player’s development,
to help the athlete understand what is needed to achieve their goals,
to monitor the player’s development (matches, measurements, personality characteristics, etc.),
to teach the player all necessary tennis skills,
to collaborate, talk and educate parents.

In addition to the roles and responsibilities listed above, communication in the triangle is also important. We must be aware that the best communication is listening and receiving the message. Only after one has expressed his/her opinion, which has to be open, clear and direct, does the other begin to speak.

Even though I was an introverted child (few friends, small talks, etc.), I loved to listen and observe. I noticed quickly that sometimes the real content of the speaker is hidden in the non-verbal part of the message, which is expressed through gestures, facial expressions, body posture, tone and volume of the voice, etc. Something that I see and recognize even better these days. The point is to catch that part of the hidden message as well, and to talk about it. The only real way is to work jointly towards the same end.