You’ll Never Change the Parents and That’s OK

“Parents.” That’s the answer I get whenever I ask coaches to name their greatest challenges. It’s certainly not their only challenge, but it’s one of the few that are nearly universal for college Coaches today. Whether I am speaking to a DIII Coach coming off of her third National Championship or a DI Coach struggling to get his program turned around, nearly all of them mention working with the parents as one of the most difficult aspects of their job.

So my goal in doing a study about parents was to dig beneath the surface to understand the foundation of parenting styles and its impact on student-athletes. The results give Coaches an opportunity to learn, understand, and improve communication, if not with the parents, then with their student-athletes. Because while much of what I’m writing seems to focus on the parents, this is really still a study about student-athletes, because they are the individuals in a Coach’s care.

As we begin, can we please agree on something? You will never change the parents.

Sure, maybe you can temporarily modify their behavior, but you’ll never materially change the parents. They love their kids as much as you love yours (your actual kids, not your student-athletes :) and they are sure they are doing the right thing. That’s ok, because you’re not educating the parents. You’re not coaching them. You’re not responsible for them or helping them to grow into the successful adults.

What Parenting Style Is and Why It Should Matter to Coaches

Parenting style is the blending of beliefs, tactics, and strategies used to raise a child.

Across hundreds of studies beginning in the 1960’s, researchers have found significant variations in how parents raise children. Some of those differences are rooted in the geography, race, and age (or generation) of parents. But still, there are more similarities than differences in parenting styles. Those similarities have allowed researchers to organize parents into four groups. Research psychologist Diane Baumrind is credited with developing that initial categorization in the 1960s. The four Baumrind parenting styles, still used today, are:

Authoritarian
Permissive
Uninvolved
Authoritative

Coaches are very good at observing student-athletes and measuring their success athletically, academically, socially, and in other ways. When coaches do this, they are observing the outcomes of the parenting styles their student-athletes have grown up in.

But if coaches understand the research related to parenting styles, they can understand the foundation of what they are observing in the student-athlete, not just the outcome.

I believe coaches can put these insights to use during the recruiting process and while the student-athlete is in their program.

The Parenting Style Study

In February 2021, I surveyed nearly 2,000 student-athletes, asking them describe their parents’ parenting style based on the Baumrind model (though of course I didn’t call it that.) Participants responded on a 5-point scale ranging from “strongly agree” to “strongly disagree.”

There were numerous statements to which student-athletes were asked to agree or disagree, but the gist of them were:

My parents give me help when I need it
My parents keep track of where I am
My parents give me rules about what I can and cannot do
My parents want to know who I am with

Based on these and other student-athlete responses, I was able to calculate the parenting styles of the participants:

Authoritarian Parents

Authoritarian parents are “old school” and traditional. They rarely take their child's beliefs or desires into consideration and think that rules should be followed blindly and without exception. Authoritarian parents don’t negotiate or seek their child’s opinion in problem-solving. They use punishments and rarely teach a child how to make better choices.

Outcomes & What Coaches Should Look For: Student-Athletes who grow up with Authoritarian parents may be great at following your team rules, but often have low self-esteem based on their opinions never being sought. They might appear angry and are often quite “good” at being deceptive - a skill they learned to avoid punishment growing up.

Authoritative Parents

Authoritative parents are committed to creating a positive relationship with their child. They take the time to explain their rules and enforce those rules. Authoritative parents stick to their plan, but they listen to their child. They don’t allow their child to sway the outcome, but authoritative parents validate their children's emotions. Authoritative parents focus on preventing bad behavior instead of penalizing it afterwards and often praise and reward their children.

Outcomes & What Coaches Should Look For: Simply put, student-athletes raised within an Authoritative parenting style are more likely to be happy, successful, good decision-makers, and better able to express their opinions appropriately.

Permissive Parents

Permissive parents don’t enforce the rules, justifying their parental style by believing that their child will learn best without their involvement. Permissive parents are lenient, only step in when there's a serious problem, and rarely commit to accountability. In what will sound all too familiar to Coaches today, Permissive parents are often their child’s best friend. They are good at getting their children to talk about their lives, but rarely use those conversations to teach anything of significance.

Outcomes & What Coaches Should Look For: Student-Athletes of Permissive parents may follow the rules a coach gives, but won’t respect or appreciate her authority in making those rules. And while Permissive parents may think they are being kind and providing independence, these children are prone to less academic success, low self-esteem, and depression.

Uninvolved Parents

Uninvolved parents don't spend much time with their children, don’t know what their children are doing, and often don’t know where they are other than school. Like Permissive parents, Uninvolved parents have few rules and don’t give guidance or attention. Uninvolved parents can be burdened by their own problems and often expect children to go it alone.

Outcomes & What Coaches Should Look For: Student-Athletes of Uninvolved parents may have low self-esteem, struggle academically, and are prone to have behavior problems.

Putting These Insights to Use

In a perfect world - and if you were playing the percentages - you’d only recruit student-athletes whose parents were Authoritative. While by no means a guarantee, you’d increase your chances that your student-athletes would exhibit the characteristics that would make them solid student-athletes and contributing members to your program.

But of course, you do not coach in a perfect world. So how could you put this data into real-world practice? By directly or indirectly probing prospective student-athletes about their experience and the parents about their beliefs. You don’t need to call it “parenting style” to get good information from parents whether they believe in rules/accountability or that "kids will be kids." In an informal manner, prospects are usually quite open and honest about whether they have a "my way or the highway” parent. And when student-athletes of Authoritarian, Permissive, or Uninvolved parents join your program, at least you can be aware of where their behavior is rooted and the emotions they may be feeling.

Like it or not, the parents are part of your program and their parenting style has played a major role in the type of student-athlete you’ll be coaching.

Today’s Parenting Styles Are Impacting Your Student-Athletes