To reprimand co-coach's daughter?

[triwarrior]

I am a co-coach of my daughter's volleyball team. The girls are aged 10 and 11. My co-coach is the parent of another child; E. My daughter is S.

Today we had a game and it went terribly. Poor effort and attitude all round. Very frustrating as we can do much better. As far as coaching "style" my co-coach and I are very different. I'm bad cop, she's good. I think ideally we would both move into the middle a little...she is very reluctant to give any "correction" and I am not.

My daughter is very emotional and got upset with me correcting her positioning today. Cried to herself on the court - but, and this is important, did not at any point criticize her teammates or be rude to me or my co-coach. Just dropped her head a bit.

E is a very sassy girl, for want of a better word. She is (over) confident and often "coaches" her teammates on their mistakes. Needless to say, I tell her to be quiet and focus on the game when that happens.

Today we lost our second set and as I was dealing with S, another girl stormed off in tears because of something that E said to her. Lots of drama... I went into the bathroom and told the group that no-one should be criticizing another team mate, that every one of us had played poorly and that we needed to wash our hands of today and next week will be better.

E turns to me, "I didn't play poorly! I returned the ball!" and I just said to her, "You need to listen more and speak less." Cue the eyerolls and attitude, which I responded to by saying very calmy, "I do not expect to be spoken to in this way by a ten year old. You're attitude needs to be improved. If you weren't a coach's daughter you'd have been benched by now."

I came out of the bathroom just as my co-coach was coming in. I told her we'd had words about E's attitude, and went back to the game. My co-coach came out later and told me that she felt she had to say that E felt very "disrespected" by me. In future she'd appreciate me allowing her to deal with E as she "let me deal with S." Then another official came over to us so the conversation moved on.

I'm so incredibly irritated. Firstly - my daughter was emotional but not rude to anyone. If she had been, I would fully support my co-coach in calling her out on it. I would expect it, actually. E is a rude little madam, and clearly is not being pulled up on this by her mother. And if she's rude to me you'd better believe she'll get a response from me.

So this is my quandary; I feel I need to be clear to my co-coach that, actually, no, I'm not going to be spoken to in that way by a child I'm coaching - and I will absolutely respond to it if necessary and perhaps she needs to tell her daughter not to be a little madame if she's so concerned about being disrespected

How would you handle this?

Same way you are. There's too many kids in every sport who think they know it all, are bossy and rude and they need to be told to rein it in.

Both coaches need to agree how to discipline any child on the team, whether their own child or anyone else's.

If you both discipline differently this isn't going to work.

I would let the other coach deal with her own dd and yours tbh. The kind of coaches that criticise and make kids cry just take all the joy out of the sport. They’re 10.
No-one should be criticising team mates but if coaches aren’t negative then the kids will follow suit.

*are

You were absolutely right to reprimand E. No- one is above the law.

I,think,you need a candid talk with co-coach about how all players are to be treated the same, regardless of who their parents are, and if you feel,you need to criticise the team for a poor performances, or suggest changes, then it applies to all players, and you won’t Accept a bad attitude from anyone.

You made your daughter cry.

They're ten years old. It's a children's game, not the Olympics.

Why isn't she being benched? If she should be just because she is a coach's daughter shouldn't make a difference.

To clarify, I said to my daughter, "S, move back, you're going to get a foot fault" (after she'd already received two foot faults that game.) Then the tears started. I'm hardly screaming at her

The rest of the post reads so negatively though - they all played terribly, poor effort and attitude all round etc. It’s hardly surprising that one child got a bit defensive and one got upset or that the co-coaches dd is echoing negative comments to her team mates.
Ds used to play for a team where the coach was only interested in what they were doing wrong and the kids would make the same comments to each other.
He’s on a lovely supportive team now where the coach and other players just build each other up and negative feedback is kept to a minimum and constructive. If I hadn’t moved him I think he’d have given up the sport altogether.

tbh although of course it's fine to correct S when she picks on others and is rude to you, I do think you were unreasonable to actually say 'E if you weren't a coaches daughter you would be benched' - isn't that just encouraging the rest of the team to realise there is one rule for S (and E?) and another for them? Hardly encouraging team harmony if the coach says so out loud, even if it is true!

I realise you and the other coach have very different styles but could you say to her that you don't want E telling the others what they are doing wrong, that's your jobs. That's hardly 'telling off' but it sounds as though it's something that needs to be made clear.

Other than that tbh it sounds like they all need to be a bit tougher all around. I thought the purpose of games at that age was to have fun and create a sense of teammanship/camaraderie, not to all be crying and storming off all over the place at the least hint of criticism. I agree with other posters, it doesn't sound like much fun for anyone involved atm. Can you maybe start incorporating more training that focuses on gelling as a team and just having a laugh rather than winning?

@Bumsex I think that's a very valid point about the negativity of my post and I take it on board. I purposely look for things to praise in the games - good try, great positioning, etc. even if the outcome wasn't necessarily positive. I guess I see my role is as much, if not more, about actually teaching rather than just cheerleading, if you see what I mean. Another thing to give some context; I am in the US, where youth sports are taken much more seriously than in the UK (for better or worse.) The league is as much about improving skills as it is canaraderie. The girls are very competitive, but today they were like different girls.

You’ve clearly said you’re ‘bad cop’ and not averse to telling all the children when they have done something wrong do you think maybe she’s picking up this negativity from you? I mean you made your own child cry.

Maybe it is different in the US. If children are crying at being corrected they are under a lot of pressure imo. Too much at 10.
Interestingly my son has improved a lot more at his new team where there philosophy is to mainly let them learn by playing and feedback is in the main positive. I think when kids are overly criticised they become afraid to try anything. Just my opinion as a parent observing different methods. I’m not a coach myself so feel free to ignore.

If you are making a child cry by giving feedback you are doing something wrong. It may not have been what you said in the moment but could be a build up of negative comments and the child feeling like they can never do anything right. Or it may not fe what you said but the tone or manner in which you said it.

Your coaching style isn’t the issue here. The issue is that your co-coach thinks her daughter is somehow off limits when it comes to coaching. No other child on that team is protected in this way.