I love coaching, but my daughter hates me.

[Jaysus]

I mean deep down I am sure she loves me, but she is a teenager now and is 100% right about everything while I am 100% wrong about everything... 100%of the time; there is no flexibility. It makes me hurt so much before every practice, every lesson, and every game at this point.

I feel like I have to quit being her coach, right?

But coaching just makes me feel so happy. I mean, it gives me such an all around good feeling to be able to help a group of girls get better at something they love (and have fun doing while doing it). My goal is to always make it fun, and always make it about them.... and I feel so good about it when I do.

But my daughter though... man I can do no right in her eyes, and I am more often than not her enemy when it comes to softball anymore. I want more than anything for her to be happy.

Me being her coach does not make her happy.

So...

I have to quit being her coach, right? It's not about be and how I feel... I want it to be for her.

 

[OsDad]

I have to quit being her coach, right? It's not about be and how I feel... I want it to be for her.

Yep.

Been there, done that, got the t-shirt. I miss it but we are all, largely, happier.

 

[cnardone]

Welcome to the club!!!! I don't think it is fair for anyone to give you a definitive answer from one post, but Yeah, probably.

 

[softball dad 6]

You are in a tough spot but from what you have described i think you need to step back from coaching. Most of all you want the time you spend with your dd to be fun and build great memories. I have almost always been an assistant coach on dd travel team. I was asked to be the assistant on her hs team but dd said that she did not want me to coach. She wanted that time to be her time. I respected that and i helped the coach by being the score keeper and giving him a scouting report on the girls from the teams we were playing.
I too love to coach and would have liked to have helped coach the hs team. I had coached all these girls when they were rec players years before and had watched them grow up. I knew it was more important to allow my dd her freedom.
She is off to play in college in the fall and i have already signed on to continue to help coach her old travel team and help coach her hs team. It will be my opportunity to help give back to the sport that has given my family so much.
As far as teenager girls go. I like to say that I couldn't figure them out 40 years ago when i was teenager and haven't gotten any better at it since. My advice is step back from coaching for a while and just enjoy going to the field one on one with your dd. Try and read her and when she is in the mood for instruction you teach her. When she is not you try and just play the role of supportive parent. I am better at giving this advice than following it all the time.
DDs secondary sport is basketball. I was trying to help her and coach her up. She finially told me one day that she played hs basketball for fun and to be in good shape and she needed me to support her not always trying to improve her. I did my best to shut up and give advice when she asked. Good luck. Sorry for the long winded advice.

Sent from my SM-G960U using Tapatalk

 

[JumboJack]

Easy. No more coaching. IMHO...

 

[So Cal Seth]

I mean deep down I am sure she loves me, but she is a teenager now and is 100% right about everything while I am 100% wrong about everything... 100%of the time; there is no flexibility. It makes me hurt so much before every practice, every lesson, and every game at this point.

I feel like I have to quit being her coach, right?

But coaching just makes me feel so happy. I mean, it gives me such an all around good feeling to be able to help a group of girls get better at something they love (and have fun doing while doing it). My goal is to always make it fun, and always make it about them.... and I feel so good about it when I do.

But my daughter though... man I can do no right in her eyes, and I am more often than not her enemy when it comes to softball anymore. I want more than anything for her to be happy.

Me being her coach does not make her happy.

So...

I have to quit being her coach, right? It's not about be and how I feel... I want it to be for her.

Not sure about the family/job dynamic and your time constraints, but is there a way to scratch the coaching itch with a different team/age group? Volunteer for the rec league?

 

[marriard]

I have to quit being her coach, right? It's not about be and how I feel... I want it to be for her.

Maybe...

Can you delegate coaching DD to your assistants or to her skills instructors?

I coached DD's team, but I didn't coach her skills from about second year 12U; that went to Assistant Coaches and her hitting/pitching instructor. I only ever repeated things they told her I could say in coaching during a game - so even when I was talking she knew it came from them - not from me.

However my DD never really didn't get to the 'hate' phase of me coaching her. It was just something that made sense to me - probably because skills-wise she probably knew more about them than I did in many areas.

 

[Dabears17]

On a 12u team I helped coach before my DD started playing we had a rule. Parent Coaches couldn't talk to their DD's once warms-up started to after the game was over.

Once my DD turned 9 I tried my best to never be her HC and only be the AC if absolutely necessary, and try to follow the rule of saying nothing to her once warm-ups start.

 

[texasheat]

Yep been there. Most of us have if you want to know the truth. it's sort of a natural transition after they become teenagers it seems. It's time to stop coaching. No way a game should affect the Father/Daughter relationship. Step back and let her go. Just be Dad. If you don't she'll likely end up quitting the game.

 

[sluggers]

I have to quit being her coach, right? It's not about be and how I feel... I want it to be for her.

Yes. Give it up.

It is a great disservice to a kid to spend her entire TB career playing for a parent. A kid needs to learn how to earn playing time from someone who isn't a parent.

Devote your time to being her personal coach and giving her one-on-one time to work on fielding, hitting and pitching.