I’ve refereed both my sons, sometimes in football, but mostly in rugby. My eldest recently recalled my one of my performances for a tough school cup match. They lost. One of my son’s teammates told him that “Your dad is a p***k”. Luckily, he still loves me, even after 27 years!
Despite being very confident about my rugby refereeing abilities, it was much harder to referee my
children than adults. The emotional rollercoaster that normally goes with being the referee became much harder.
Here are my top tips and reflections based on those experiences mixed in with years of talking to others at both professional and grassroots level.
Pre-emptive conversation
Ask your child how they feel about you being the referee. The question should be framed not as a choice over whether it will happen but to prepare them for what may be ahead.
With them, discuss where you might not be able to support them or what should happen if they disagree with a decision.
Also, help to prepare them in how to deal with opposition players, coaches and spectators being less than kind about your decisions.
No need to tell the opposition
If you are going to referee well, the opposition needn’t know that you have a stake in the game beyond refereeing.
Of course, some teams will know already. Unfortunately, that will fuel some bias on their part, especially when a subjective decision doesn’t go their way.
You have already told your child how to deal with it. For you personally, it is always best to try and ignore any interaction that is a consequence of this perceived bias. They won’t believe you made any decision that doesn’t favour your child!
Neutral language
You will have already spoken to your child about how that they will be treated like any other player. To make this even more effective, you should try to keep your language as neutral as possible, as if you didn’t know any players on either team. Using numbers as opposed to names can certainly help with this.
Also, where possible use the referees’ law book as your language to explain decisions rather than add any colour.
Break the bias
Refereeing your own team is hard enough. It is easy to compensate both ways. Sometimes you aren’t cheating but favouring your team because you see them every week and you know that they are trying something, and you want to reward that.
Break the bias by favouring the opposition on close decisions. If you are accused of being a tough referee by your own side, take that as a compliment.
Projecting this on your child is even tougher. You are desperate for them to play well, enjoy the experience and be motivated to keep playing. Mentally rehearse tight moments where they may not be doing so well. How are you going
to react?
This is where you need leaders in the team to support your child. For example, tell the team about the challenges of refereeing them ahead of games, perhaps sharing that in more detail with more mature players.
Your co-coaches will have to work hard on your behalf. They should also remember that you are doing them a favour by refereeing instead of them!
Discuss the game, not your decisions
Post-game, you will definitely feel anxious and hyped up.
You need to allow time to bring yourself into the present of being a parent. That’s why, even if your child is asking for detail on your decisions (which they shouldn’t, but they don’t always comply with your previous good ideas), you need to say that you will chat about the game but not yet.
When you do come to discuss the game, lead the conversation away from your performance. You might have been brilliant – you don’t need your child to say that. More likely, you will feel you made too many errors or are conscious of others thinking that.
Again, any discussion of that nature should be with your co-coaches, not your child.
I must admit it was a far more enjoyable experience watching my sons play when I was neither the coach nor the referee. However, that sacrifice enabled many other great opportunities for them and their team-mates. We need to referee positively to grow the game. I hope these tips encourage not just you, but others in your coaching groups to take
up the whistle and share the burden.
Dan Cottrell is the editor of Rugby Coach Weekly. Both his sons are now grown up but still
play team sports. Neither of them is a referee…yet.
Parents are too often seen as the problem not the solution. That’s the feeling of many coaches who perceive parental interference causing them, and by dint of association, their players unwanted aggravation.
According to more recent research, this is not the case. And it’s the players who are telling us this. The RFU, increasingly conscious of the welfare of their players, especially players on their elite pathways, have brought in the expertise of Dr Camilla Knight, who is an associate professor in Sport Science at Swansea University.
Her team has been given unprecedented access to the players, parents and coaches at the Wellington Festival over the last two years. The festival, which brings together around 420 players from 14 Premiership academies, is a goldmine for researchers. Their target dataset is all in one place and so they can gather an enormous amount of focused information.
START WITH THE RUGBY JOURNEY
Using informal settings, groups of players (and later on parents, coaches, teachers, and academy staff) were asked about their rugby journeys so far.
“It’s honest, and it’s relaxed because it’s in a group,” says Dr Knight. “The players were happy to open up and share stories. They talked about other parents’ behaviours too, which allowed them to perhaps relate personal experiences. It was all completely confidential. We wanted to find out who had helped them, and what might have derailed them.”
“There was so much data to work through. Our first focus was on discovering more about the parents’ role in the player’s rugby life. At the start, at a young age, the players relied on the parents very heavily. As the player realised they were had some potential, they began to listen more to their peers and coaches. However, crucially, the parents remained their main source of support.
MUMS AND DADS – DIFFERENT CONVERSATIONS
“The players explained that they tended to ask dad for technical advice and mum for emotional support. It was certainly very gendered, and this is backed up by our research in Wales on parental involvement.
“When looking at parents’ experiences of supporting their children in rugby, we also see other differences between mothers and fathers, with mothers indicating far more concerns about injuries, whereas fathers were often more likely to have played and so know about the collision outcomes.”
The key message that keeps coming across from this research, and this approach, is that all participants in the game need to keep conversations going. Each stakeholder has many pulls on their lives. It’s tough when a 16 year-old player is being asked to make choices over their playing loyalties.
In the meantime, the parent is looking out for their son or daughter, while the coach is hoping to develop the player.
“It was interesting that parents often helped players balance demands and expectations. The players liked the fact their parents were keen for them to do well. However, if the coach was too pushy, then the parent was able to reduce that pressure. As the player got older, they want their parents to be a little less vocal, probably as their peers and coaches do became more influential.”
COACHES LEARNING MORE
“We recognise that parents are trying to do the right thing. They will make mistakes, and not always know what to do. The players recognise this too. But understanding the intention is well meaning is important.
“Coaches must embrace parents. If they are giving out a message on say leadership to the players, then the parents need to know this so they can reinforce that message at home. Otherwise the impact is lost.
“Also, we should support parents with the difficult conversations that are going to arise. If they’ve considered the possible answers, it makes it easier to react positively to issues like being dropped or getting injured.”
While the RFU research has been around the academy game, Dr Knight highlights how it can be used across all levels. “We need to upskill parents with more information. Initially, it’s about the pathway. Then, it’s using the game to create “good” people. Let parents know what you are doing so it can be reinforced at home. Help parents know how to support their child’s emotional needs.”
KEY TAKEAWAYS
Dr Knight emphasises that there is still an enormous amount of data to analyse on other relationships. However, from the point of view of coaches, the key takeaways are:
- Players rely heavily on parents. So, don’t push away a key part of the player’s support system.
- Parents want to do the right thing. Help them to see what they can do and support them in trying to do this.
- Communicate messages to the parents that you are giving to the players. It can then be reinforced at home.
Child-centred learning puts the young player first when you are building your coaching plan. Include the key coaching element of the parent to make it work better.
Young players are receptive to child-centred approach to coaching if you can challenge them at the right pace. However, because there’s a lot of emphasis on them to give you feedback and respond to your questions and problem-solving, they need a strong team of people around them. Otherwise, they might see mistakes and non-linear progress as failure and lose confidence.
Parents are a central part of their child’s confidence. They need to be an integral part of the learning process, so why not make it parent-centred and player-centred.
Here’s how.
Pre-training communication
Training times are normally set in stone. However, you might send out a reminder.
Why not include a question for the session in the reminder? For example, “Ask your son/daughter two things, 1: What would be a good way to start the session? 2: What would be a good way to change the Zombie’s game we played last week?”
When the parents arrive at the session, ask one or two of them what response they got.
Post-training support
We all want our parents to ask good questions after the session. Why not get the players to ask a question to the parent?
Keep it simple and open-ended. For example: “Which bit of the game did you enjoy most?” or “What was my best bit?”
Child coaching parent
The players, though they probably don’t recognise it, need to be aware of how their parent can support them. The questions from the post-training support are one way.
You could also encourage the child and parent to develop a support system for each other. For example, you could have a list of situations and give them to the parent and child to fill in together.
Some examples could be: “What’s the best thing to say to me if we lost a game?” “What happens if one of my team mates says something I don’t like?” “How do you want me to react if I score a try? Is that the same as making a tackle?” “What is the most important thing for both of us when I’m playing for the team?”
Value system development
All National Governing Bodies have strong guidelines on how parents, coaches and players should enact their values. The danger that these are handed out at the start of a season, and rarely mentioned.
A parent-centred approach might put the onus on the parents to think about each value on a weekly rotation. Again, this might be put into a communication, or as a question asked by one of the players.
In essence: “What can our family do this week to live up to that value?”
Different needs
Parent-centred means that the parents lead their own learning, just as much as the players do when you are training with them. Don’t expect to have every parent following your own path. You create the environment, you make the suggestions, you react to their thoughts.
However, they will create their own outcomes by their actions. Yet, if you can make it a joint responsibility, and by that I mean “family” and not between you and the child then it should be a more powerful and permanent outcome.
Parent-led coaching
You should now see that by making your coaching child-led, you are inevitably coaching the parent in the same way. They will be on a learning journey too.
Whether you make that explicit or not is your call. Perhaps it’s time we made it clear that we are ALL in it together.
Thank you to Dan Cottrell for contributing this guest blog to the site. Dan has previously held coaching roles with the Young Ospreys Academy and was Assistant Coach on the Wales Women’s Team for the 2010 World Cup. He is also currently editor of Rugby Coach Weekly(www.rugbycoachweekly.net).
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