Should I Coach My Own Child on the Youth Baseball Team?

Complement Sandwich: Baseball Coaching Tips

After spending some years around youth baseball and observing baseball coaches I am wondering how you feel about coaches coaching their own child.

I have seen many combinations and some situations seem to work out well and other times there is nothing but problems and heartache.

Do you have any tips for baseball coaches on how to handle coaching your own kid? Do think it is okay to coach little league or youth baseball league when you have a child on the team?

If so, how do go about sports coaching with your own child playing baseball on your team? Looking for baseball tips, baseball info, and baseball basics on coaching advice for the parent coaching their kids.

Ask The Pro: Response from Dave

The large majority of youth sports coaches are coaching baseball because they have a child or two as a player on the team. So, if youth baseball leagues are going to rely on volunteer coaches then they will have to include parent coaches to be involved.

Having said that, it has been stated that the Mom or Dad parent coaches are either to soft and coddle their child; or take the opposite baseball coaching approach and ride the

Neither of these two coaching strategies is healthy or appropriate to the child or the rest of the players on the team. Somewhere in the middle is an appropriate baseball coaching quality.

You are looking for someone who is firm but fair and consistent with every player. You a need a coach that uses the complement sandwich approach.

*See the baseball article: How to Build Confidence and the Top 3 Ingredients for the Complement Sandwich: https://www.coachandplaybaseball.com/coaching-Youth-Baseball.html

You would like a youth baseball coach that teaches baseball fundamentals and techniques, teaches character building, encourages team building strategies, fosters teamwork, gets along with fellow coaches, umpires, and other baseball parents.

All this and is respectful and appreciative of the efforts their own child and all the kids put out on the ball field. And above all looks past the winning-at-all-costs approach to little league and all youth baseball to Teach More Than the Game.

See this article on baseball coaching character at https://www.coachandplaybaseball.com/baseball-character.html

Your youth baseball league should hold baseball coaches clinics and coaching training for all your coaches during the preseason. A coaches code of ethics is often effective in educating coaches, too.