Creating the right culture
“I had a parent lose his temper with me,” Kath relates. “He felt I wasn’t paying enough attention to his son in a tournament and just started yelling at me. I said, ‘I’m really sorry you feel like that, when you’ve calmed down, I’ll explain what I’ve been doing and how I’ve been supporting him.’ We talked but I couldn’t change his mind.
“Often, it’s nothing to do with you, it’s some other underlying problem. Sometime all it takes is saying calmly, ‘why don’t you tell me what the real problem is?’”
The support that Kath receives from other coaches is indispensable in situations like that.
“Having the support of other coaches who you can talk to and get an objective view on the situation is crucial,” Kath says. “My red lines are cheating, bullying or a parent trying to turn a child against me. If the parent won’t tackle that, I can’t coach them effectively.”