Parents, like the players, the coaches, the administrators and every other stakeholder, are all part of the same football team. Each has a key role to play.

The players’ role is easy to define, interpret and action. Assigned a position or perhaps a number of different positions, a coach teaches them how to play the position.

The coach’s role is to plan, deliver and evaluate age- and stage-appropriate coaching sessions to support the development of the player’s technical, tactical, physical, mental and personal/ social skills. They also coach the team-specific plays and set pieces.

The administrator’s job, depending upon the hat they are wearing, is also clear. It might be scheduling, travel, treasurer and many more jobs required to ensure the kids can play the game.

How well defined is the parents’ role? Are they volunteer coaches? Volunteers in some other capacity? Spectators? Team moms? What role do they play in the team? How do they know what their role is? How have you shared this with them?

Some football coaches are now viewing their role through a different lens. Some see the team as a collective group of players, parents and supporters and then view themselves as an 'employee' of that team. (It is not my team, I am their coach).

Like any well-run company, all employees have a role to play that that is based upon working toward the achievement of the program goal and subsets of that global goal. You will have a long list of actions that you need to do to achieve that goal, some of which will be on the field and others off the field.

You will no doubt have allocated the responsibility for supporting and achieving those goals to various members or team employees. Have you identified which ones are the parents’ responsibilities? Some of these will be logistical, associated with transportation and planning for road trips. Others will be social functions such as charity fundraisers or prize-giving.

Perhaps their most important job is to support their child. Coaches often assume that parents instinctively know what to do to support their children. They assume parents ensure they have the right amount of sleep, eat the right type of food, and arrive at practice in plenty of time with enough food and water and with the right equipment. We also assume they can provide the appropriate level of support and encouragement. We hope they can foster the growth mindset required to help their children learn from poor performance, loss and failure. We hope the parent does not contribute to the child’s stress levels with unrealistic expectations and demands.

As coaches, we cannot assume they know of all of this. We need to educate them about their role as a sport parent.

BelievePerform, an international sport psychology website, has created an infographic that identifies in simple terms the role of the youth sports parent. It is part guide/ part code of conduct. It is also a useful tool to educate your parents about their job as parents, team members and ‘employees’.

If you believe this is useful to enhance the child’s performance, share this with them on the website or via social media to inform, manage and moderate behavior.

Sarah McQuade is an independent coach education consultant, owner and director of e.t.c coaching consultants and co-director with The Coach Learning Group. To learn more about accessing how-to coach skills workshops click the Coaching Skills button at www.etcoachingconsultants.com.