The Benefits of Parent Coaching
What resource is immensely helpful, free, and often overlooked? Parent coaching! One of the best ways parents can help their kids is by committing to being their parent coach. This can mean parents judging at tournaments, watching their children’s rounds and daily impromptu speeches, helping them decode ballots, or helping them improve their persuasiveness.
Disclaimer: I am not a parent! However, I am one of the founding members of a club in one of the top two most competitive NCFCA debate regions in the country. I have seen how committed parent coaches have helped their students become extremely successful, qualifying to regionals and nationals because of hard work. I am only writing about things I have seen committed parents do successfully in my club, and I will be including quotations from experienced students and parents throughout.
What is a parent coach?
A parent coach is a committed parent who is willing to dedicate time, effort, and energy to help one of their children succeed in speech and debate. They walk alongside their child and help them problem solve.
There are several KEY things that make this dynamic work:
Both the parent and student are willing to work hard.
This setup will not work if the parent is the only one truly interested. In my family, the responsibility of asking a parent to be their parent coach is on the student. This has worked very well for us so far, because it ensures that the student is committed. As an experienced parent coach explained, “The trick is to let them lead. It’s their case. Let them work as hard as they want on it."
Students are ready to graciously accept constructive feedback.
Students: I know how hard it is to accept feedback on your competitive weaknesses. But before you commit to a parent coaching relationship, you must be ready to do this. Remember that your parents are investing in you because they love you. As an experienced competitor told me, “Ultimately, parents always want to set us up for success”.
Students listen to the parent’s feedback
Students must agree to listen to their parent coach’s feedback, even if they doubt it at first. It is often helpful to have this agreement written down, or at least explicitly agreed to by all parties. There are few things more frustrating to a coach than being asked to spend time giving thoughtful feedback, only for it not to be taken to heart.
The parent and child get along in daily life.
If your parent-child relationship is struggling, this may not be the time for you to step into a parent coaching relationship because both parties must feel comfortable giving and receiving constructive feedback. Students can always ask another club parent or coach to give them frequent feedback.
Parents, you need not be a speech or debate wizard, or have any prior experience in speech or debate to be helpful! As long as you are committed to learning, your life experience as a parent and an adult is enough. A parent coach I talked to clarified this well,
“It’s not as hard as it would seem. I don’t need to know the answers to the questions I ask about their case, they do!"
Note: A parent may only have time to coach one of their kids. This is fine! Other kids can always seek out the other parent as a coach, one of their debate partner’s parents, or another club adult.
What does a parent coach do?
Since every child will have different needs, every parent coach will have to do different things. Here are some ideas that might be helpful:
They judge rounds at tournaments.
It’s very helpful for a parent coach to judge several rounds at tournaments so that they can gauge how competitive their student is, and see some great examples of skills executed well by other students (ex: argues persuasively, nails cross examination, or speaks in a likeable way).
They watch their kids’ rounds.
In order to understand where a student is at, the parent coach will probably need to watch several of their rounds. Parents, I’d encourage you to put on your ‘coaching hat’ and take lots of notes. Write down the strengths and weaknesses of your child so that you know what their ‘baseline level’ of skill is.
They help decode ballots.
Ballot feedback can be extremely confusing for students! As a parent coach, you have a window into the judging world that can help you explain ballot feedback to your student. As an experienced competitor said, “Parents provide a valuable perspective that helps debaters better understand their judges”.
They watch their kids’ daily impromptu speeches and give them feedback.
Let me pull out my soapbox for a moment: daily impromptu practice is essential to improving in speech and debate! Having parent feedback can make this investment of time so much more useful for students because it gives them a window into the mind of their judges. Again, even feedback from a novice parent can be helpful. An experienced parent coach gave this reminder:
“Parent coaching is a great opportunity to help students improve, regardless of the experience level of the parent. Inexperienced parents can really help improve their child’s foundational public speaking skills.”
They help them improve their persuasiveness.
What a 14 year old thinks is persuasive may not be persuasive to a judge. When students get carried away by analogies they think are brilliant, or when they accidentally alienate a parent judge with their choice of words, a parent coach can help them reframe their points in a more persuasive way. Parent coaches can read 1ACs and affirmative cases, negative briefs, or platform speeches, and give students constructive feedback. As an experienced competitor told me:
“As debaters, we can often get bogged down in our own arguments and lose the whole picture of the debate round. Parents set the round back into perspective. Their advice can help us explain the case in simple yet persuasive terms”.
Parents are one of the most helpful resources students have for improving in speech and debate. Those who choose to step into a parent-coaching role can improve their child’s speaking and debating skills exponentially. While this coaching commitment may seem scary, I promise you that with the proper parent-child dynamic, even novice parents and students can be very successful. Whether you’re a parent or a student, consider parent coaching this year. You might be surprised by just how helpful it can be.
Best of luck!