As a coach I have seen both sides of wrestling parents. One that fosters growth and another that fosters resentment and frustration.

My dad had no experience wrestling besides maybe getting into a couple scraps with his friends and brother haha.

I think in a lot of ways that was good. I didn’t have a dad that was always on top of me critiquing me at every match and practice. He was able to stay my dad and my coach was my coach.

As my two sons continue to grow (Gideon 2 and Ezra 9 months), I am in a complete different situation. My job is wrestling, that’s my passion!

How can I as a coach and father help my sons find success?

From my experience, the parents that help their kids focus on improvement and effort rather than results tend to see better outcomes.

I also see value in letting the coaches coach, giving your kids space and allow the coaches to critique and guide them.

I even had fathers in similar situations as me, recommend I don’t coach my sons.

So if I’m not supposed to coach my kids what can I do?

In addition to, focusing on improvement and effort, I also see value when parents DON’T make excuses for their kids.

For example, your son/daughter just lost to someone older. After the match you could say “it’s ok they were older.” Which may be true, but I think a better response might be, “great effort out there, don’t worry about it you’ll make the improvements and continue to get better.”

Now if they gave a poor effort I think it’s perfectly fine to say, “I know you can go harder than that, next match I want to see you go 100% it doesn’t matter if you win or lose.” From my experience you have to find a balance of honesty and encouragement.

One other great quality I have seen in parents is the ability to help their child emotionally deal with wins and loses. It’s common for a child to be upset when they lose and excited when they win. Helping them to act in an appropriate way on and off the mat is important. A great way to help your child understand how to act is to show them a teammate who displays good sportsmanship.

I’ll keep you guys updated on anything else I learn as I continue to parent/coach my own kids haha.

Best,

Coach Ebed