‌Thank you Hi everyone!

So your child is a young champion in the making? It's great ! A very important aspect of the child's development is the coach/trainers!

The relationship between a young player and his/her coaches must of course be good,
(I will address this subject in another article): Your child must feel good with the trainer and vice versa.

If the young player/coach relationship is important, the relationship between coaches and parents is regularly relegated to the background or even neglected.

Indeed, very often parents who are not experts in tennis or high-level sports leave the management to the club coach and thus entrust their child and their future in the world of tennis to him.

The club coach then becomes more than a coach: he is "the coach", the guide and as such he decides almost everything that must be done or not done and often the parents with total confidence follow relatively blindly, without discussing and without trying to understand the coach's instructions...

After all, who better than an expert tennis coach to guide our children on their tennis journey? Let the professionals do it. At the risk of displeasing some people: This approach to your child's journey in the world of tennis is, in my opinion, bad or even the worst that there can be.

Let me explain :

What are (briefly) the needs of your young champion to move forward with his project?

• Training (Area of ​​competence of the trainer)
• Matches / competitions (Area of ​​competence of the coach but he cannot be present to accompany your child for all matches, parents are often requested)
• Physical preparation (... At the limit of the trainer's area of ​​expertise)
• Mental preparation (Not really the coach's area of ​​expertise even if he can give some advice, those around him and parents play an important role)
• Long-term follow-up (Area of ​​competence of the coach and parents: Note that a player can change coaches but not parents)

But also :

• Funding (Parents' area of ​​expertise. On this subject the coach is sometimes slightly evasive lol)
• An organization in terms of timetable (school management among others) (Area of ​​competence of parents)

In order to properly manage all these needs, it is a project that must be built and carried out and we can clearly see that:

• The coach is not the one who will manage the finances.
• The coach is not the one who will be present at all matches to analyze, follow and support your child.
• The coach is not the one who will manage the school
• Parents are necessarily involved

From there already, it seems unwise to leave the coach alone to manage the project.

There are at least 3 actors: The player / The coach / the parents.

And for it to work well it seems obvious to me that:

1. The coach must not try to exclude parents from the project (which unfortunately often happens)
2. Parents must not take responsibility for the coach (which unfortunately also happens often)

Also to build a project around your child, it seems obvious to me that the parent/coach relationship is of great importance and this must be good, it must be healthy and constructive.

Player / Parents / Coaches must form a team around a project: it is the team that moves the project forward!

1. If at the start you are parents and have little knowledge of the world of tennis and high-level sport, you will have to get involved, document yourself, inform yourself, learn in order to better understand this world and little by little become an actor in your children's project.
2. If you are a coach and you accept a project, you have a duty to inform parents well in order to help them train themselves and to lay the foundations of a good relationship that will last over time. You must accept that you are not the absolute decision maker and that you work as a team with (at least) the parents.

To illustrate, I share with you our experience with the coaches of Elouan:

• Elouan started tennis at 3 years old: His coach spotted him very quickly. At the time I said to him "wait, he's a 3 year old... he's having fun".
• At 6 years old, slightly disappointed by the club (lack of activity), we change... but the coach remains a friend.
• At 7 years old Elouan found himself in a 1 hour group lesson in a group of 4 players that he dominated and despite my requests his trainer did not want to move him into the higher group claiming that at 6 years old 1h30 of training was too long. (Clearly without being an expert, I see that the coach takes me for a pigeon and is making fun of me, the probable truth is that if Elouan leaves the group (to go with the other coach of the club), he only finds himself at 3 in the group and as the money went to the other coach it was less profitable for him): result: 1 year of lost progress (but for the moment Elouan plays tennis for leisure so let's move on...)
• At 8 years old again: But then I insist and the coach gives in: Elouan changes groups... 1 me later the new coach spots him and offers me individuals... it's cool. Elouan evolves quickly within his new group, after a few months he dominates his friends, he is the driving force of the group.
• At the age of 9, Elouan expressed his desire to become a professional: So I began to take a close interest in the project and I got involved.... He does individual work and he is in collective court in which he also dominates... I can see that the coach uses it to pull the other players up, which in itself is very good but who is pulling Elouan up? It would have been good to move him up a level... but the coach does nothing: result: slowed progress
• At 10 years old, I had to threaten to unsubscribe him from the group so that Elouan was finally in a group where he was a Wagon and not a Locomotive. (And he made enormous progress that year)... My relationship with the coach is courteous, "even cool" but the confidence is no longer there and the more I research, the more I find out, the more I see that the trainer has clearly fooled me on lots of little things... I put Elouan in training in complement in 2 other clubs... and it's great, it's diverse, it's fun and not just progressing, it's having a blast.... and personally I'm learning more and more about the world of tennis... Of course this doesn't please his main trainer at all who adores Elouan but who talks a lot (badly) behind my back and continues to try to lead me along, he even tells me one day "parents should not get involved"...  the relationship will end up turning sour, the club will get involved, naturally having biased towards its coach... the rest is sewn in white thread: Result: Angry, we will change coaches and clubs.

There you have it, the coach was technically very good but as you see the Parent / Coach relationship was not healthy and it ended up destroying the project that we could put in place.

• At 11 years old: New club and new coaches: the experience of the past was useful to lay the foundations of the new relationship with the new coaches: we don't lie to each other, we don't hide our faces... we discuss openly the needs of some, the needs of others, We work together on the project, we talk, we personalize... we are aware of the difficulties that such a project represents... we talk about tennis, we talk about the players, we talk about money, investment, sponsor, training, tournament, team, school, future... we build the project on relational bases healthy and that's super important.

Player / Parents / Coach(es)
We form a team: it’s the team that moves the project forward!

To conclude :

It is not uncommon to hear from coaches, or from institutions, committees, leagues, or even in the FFT directives that parents must let the professionals do their thing and not get involved in their children's tennis...
I had the opportunity to talk with professional players and aspiring players... they all agree that the close environment plays a very important role... also from my point of view it is It is a mistake to want to put parents and close entourage aside... they must be included in the project, we need to help them better understand the world of tennis, train them so that they can integrate and actively participate, and not just "finance"... (from what I've heard recently (2024) mentalities are evolving within the FFT at this level... so much the better)

If you are parents of a young champion, I invite you to take an interest in your child's project, I encourage you to try to better understand the workings of the tennis world, and I invite you to talk, talk and talk again with the coach your child...

If you are a coach, I invite you to reach out to parents, honestly explain to them what it is: Sports involvement, finance, school... future... focus on a healthy and honest project... 99.99% of young people will not end up pro, but the adventure what you are going to experience will be nice! Establish a healthy relationship that will allow you to go far...

I leave you there-above wishing you a great day, don't hesitate to leave a comment to enrich this article.