The Ultimate Game Plan To Get Parents To Help Out This Soccer Season
It takes a team to run a soccer team!
What’s it take to run a successful soccer team? To start, you need a team and that starts with tracking down parents to get players registered. Next scheduling practices and games. There’s also the scheduling of tournaments, sending out information, and organizing snacks, carpools, and equipment.
As a coach, you have a lot on your plate with planning practices, arranging parent meetings, plus your coaching duties. To stay focused on that you need to rally parents to get involved with the other aspects of running a soccer team. If not, you will find yourself drowning in a lot of soccer duties!
Let’s tackle this problem with a game plan! Today we’re going to discuss 5 effective ways to get parents involved with soccer teams and programs
It’s Not Just Your Team
I’ve had all kinds of soccer coaching experiences. I coached teams with a lot of supportive parents that took care of all the behind-the-scenes details. This freed me up to focus on developing age-appropriate practices for my players, coach games, and most importantly develop a bond with the team.
I also coached soccer teams with little support where I had to split my time between soccer coach, team manager, and coordinator for soccer team-related stuff. Can you guess which soccer coaching experience was much more enjoyable and led to a successful (learning and growing) soccer season?
Your Ever Present Team
Do you have a preference for which way you’d like to run your soccer team?
It’s obvious there is more to a soccer team than the coaches and players. Many hands are needed to share the load. Who can you call on to share soccer team duties so you can be the coach your team needs and have a great soccer season?
Parents!
Parents have already carved out time into their busy schedules to get their kids to and from practice and to cheer at their soccer games. They probably love the sport since their kids are involved. They also want their child’s team to succeed just like you do!
Help Is Close By
Soccer moms and dads are the best people to recruit to help you run and organize the team so you can coach. It’s not always easy to get parents involved with the soccer team or program though.
There’s reluctance. Or one parent might volunteer, but it’s still not enough. And parents are busy and might feel they don’t have time to commit.
As the coach, you shouldn’t have to pick up the slack when help is lacking. You can round up the help you need. You just need a game plan to get parent volunteers.
I will address this problem and offer up solutions by giving you 5 strategies that will effectively get parents involved with your soccer team. This is your game plan.
Each part of your soccer parent game plan will motivate parents to volunteer because they will be signing up for jobs that are manageable and will contribute to having a winning soccer team.
When you engage parents to pitch in with your soccer team you will be able to focus on coaching and not worry about all the non-coaching details that are part of running a soccer program.
The Ultimate Game Plan For Soccer Parents
As a soccer coach, you’re probably familiar with having a game plan. Consider these next 5 steps in your game plan to effectively get parents involved with your soccer team.
Motivate Soccer Moms and Dads
Do you know how commercials present an incentive so you want to buy their product? This same tactic can be used to get soccer parents to volunteer. When you show your parents what’s in it for them you can get them motivated to help!
Here are some ideas to motivate parent involvement:
- If your soccer club requires service hours remind parents their service hours will fulfill the requirement
- Give an incentive like an end of season parent celebration
- Emphasize that parental involvement will lead to a winning (learning life long lessons) season for their kids
Make Volunteering Doable For Soccer Parents
One of the biggest obstacles to getting parents involved is availability. Soccer moms and dads don’t signup because they think they don’t have enough time. The workaround to this is to make soccer jobs doable. Keep time commitments to a minimum.
Make volunteering possible by doing the following:
- For larger tasks ask parents to sign-up for one week at a time instead of the entire season
- For jobs that have multiple roles get a team of parents to take ownership of just one role
- Communicate what time commitment is involved
- Emphasize that adding an extra task doesn’t take much time. For example, if a parent is already going to watch a game they can sign up to bring snacks since they are already coming.
Clearly Communicate The Soccer Team Needs:
Let parents know what you need to run the soccer team! If non-coaching tasks are taking you away from your team share that with parents!
Get parents on board to help the team with these ideas:
- Tell parents what you need to focus on for practices and games but what needs to happen to keep the team functioning
- Share how having to do everything on your own lessens the quality of coaching you can give to the team.
- Communicate the most important things the team needs to function properly
Make Parental Involvement Fun
If something is fun it doesn’t feel like extra work right? Soccer is a fun sport to play so make soccer involvement fun too!
Make helping out fun with these ideas:
- Create a culture of teamwork with parents just like you do with your players
- Have a soccer parent team bonding event like a season kickoff, post-game dinner, or ice cream social
Give Recognition To Soccer Parents
Nothing reinforces a job well done more than recognition. Parents will appreciate getting noticed for their efforts and will want to stay involved.
Recognize your soccer parents by doing the following:
- Have a volunteer parent of the month
- Give regular shout outs to parents in team communication
- Write a note of thanks at the end of each season.
The Team Within The Team
Remember it takes a team to run a team. You need to coach your soccer players, but the team has other functions that need to get taken care of too. If you want to have a good soccer season follow this game plan to get team parents involved!
Getting soccer parents involved might be a tall order. When you have a game plan to get parents on board you will get the help you need!
What does your soccer parent involvement game plan going to look like?
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