A creative non-fiction exploration of being a parent-coach as an antecedent of coaching behaviours through the lens of self-determination theory

Parents who coach their children play a key role in facilitating organised community youth sport participation, and parenting behaviour can have notable effects on youth sport motivation. Yet little is known about the factors influencing parent-coaches’ behaviours. Embedded in self-determination theory, this study qualitatively explored the antecedents of parent-coaches’ need-supportive, -depriving and -thwarting behaviours to generate insight on training and support measures for parent-coaches that could help improve the quality of community youth sport participants’ motivational outcomes. Eight male community youth football parent-coaches participated in coach observations, interviews and focus groups over 5 months. Through reflexive thematic analysis, three major themes were developed: parent-coaches are not a blank slate – biographies influence coaching behaviours; the social context exacerbates parent-coaches’ challenges with managing the dual role; and coach’s child is stuck in the middle between parent-coach and teammates. The parent-coaches’ experiences were illustrated through a creative non-fiction story using a composite character named Dennis. The findings and story offer explanations for parent-coaches’ behaviours and shed light on the emotionality and interpersonal challenges of being a parent-coach.