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It's Parents in Sport week!! A week dedicated to providing parents with support and guidance about how to have a positive sporting experience for parents and children.

So it is only fitting that I had a conversation with Gordon MacLelland of Working with Parents in Sport

In this conversation I am actually being a sport parent and recording the podcast on my phone while watching my son play his first game of 'proper football' (this gets me into trouble so stay listening until the end to hear me try and make amends with my son for not paying enough attention to his first game....Bad Dad!!!)

Gordon and I explore the challenges of being a sports parent, we also look into how parents can navigate the increasingly competitive and ruthless world of talent identification as well as looking into some practical ideas around how coaches can build better relationships with parents.

If you can cope with the sounds of enthusiastic parents in the background and my occasion outburst as my son does something good in the game then I am sure that you will get a lot from this.

Enjoy!

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Don't forget to buy yourself an early Christmas present and book your place on the upcoming learning event on 4th January where I will be exploring the next evolution of coaching with John O'Sullivan from Changing the Game Project and Mark Bennett from Performance Development Systems. Click here for more details

I am also running another event in Scotland called 'Talent Equation Live' with the kind support of Stuart Melville's College in Edinburgh on 29th March. Details can be found here.

Reed Maltbie is a coach that takes his craft seriously. Alongside a lifetime of experience and ongoing learning he also has 2 masters degrees in Psychology and Child Development so when it comes to developing children in sport....he knows a thing or two!

His passion for coaching and for the impact that a coach can have have on children led him to deliver a TED talk on the subject of communication which you can check out below

In this great podcast episode Reed explains how he develops positive environments for young people to thrive within. We cover a lot of topics including:

  • The impact of words on people

  • How an email from a parent 'cut him in half' and nearly made him quit coaching

  • Strategies he uses to build positive relationships with parents including having a 'lollipop parent' patrolling the sidelines to manage behaviour

  • How 'the why' of coaching is the most important thing that a coach can have to help them navigate player and parental relationships

  • The 3 'V's' of communication - Visual, Verbal, Values

  • How to stop being a 'joystick coach'.

This was a super enjoyable conversation packed full of quality information, I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

Listen below or subscribe in itunes here

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