Why Treating Parenting Like Coaching Creates Stronger Families And Teams

What if the best parenting lessons come from the locker room—and the sharpest coaching insights come from home? I share how a sudden end to a playing career and the birth of my first child collided, starting a sixteen-year stretch where coaching and parenting ran in parallel and taught me the same truths about growth, standards, and care.

We unpack tough love the right way: not harshness, but honest care with clear expectations. I explain how to deliver hard feedback without breeding resentment—whether it’s a non-selection talk with an athlete or a boundary with a teenager—by building real rapport before you need it. You’ll hear simple rituals that make a big difference, like one-on-one walks, hot chocolate chats, and pre-practice conversations about life that signal, I see you and I’ve got your back. When people know you care, facts can be heard even when feelings run hot.

Tone control becomes the secret weapon. If you yell all the time, no one hears you when it counts. If you vary your delivery and save your strongest voice for true urgency, your words land. I share practical ways to build that range—yes, even Toastmasters—so your voice works like an instrument, not a siren. From there, we focus on culture: creating environments that invite ownership, encourage experimentation, and make people proud to be part of the team. The target is simple and bold—be the coach or parent they’re proud of, not because you were easy, but because you were fair, consistent, and deeply invested in their growth.

If you’re raising kids, leading athletes, or both, this conversation gives you a usable framework: build rapport, shape tone, and lead for long-term pride. If something here sparked a shift for you, subscribe, share this with a friend, and tell me what you’ll try this week. Your reflection might become the next topic—drop me a message on LinkedIn and let’s keep growing together.

If you can SUBSCRIBE, RATE, and SHARE the show and series, you would be doing your bit to grow this show. Very appreciated. Ben

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Chapters

• 0:00 Parenting Is Coaching
• 1:53 From Player To Parent-Coach
• 4:12 Tough Love And Clear Standards
• 5:50 Coaching Without Resentment
• 9:04 Building Rapport One-On-One
• 11:35 Tone Control And Saving Bullets
• 14:56 Practice Your Voice With Intention
• 17:00 Be Someone They’re Proud Of

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:47

Hey team, welcome to this midweek session of reflections. We're going to talk a little bit today about this concept of parenting is coaching and coaching is parenting. I really love this concept. I've talked about it a lot because it's been a massive part of my journey, and the two things are the same. So, this is how it started for me. Uh played professionally for 10 years and got knocked out badly and in a moment had to retire. And that moment happened in the same week I had my first child. We have gone on to then have four children, and it's been a great journey. My coaching has gone up to this point, 16 years. My oldest daughter's 16, four children, and my coaching journey has grown and evolved along with my parenting journey. And it's cool because those two things are super parallel. The things you do as a coach are very similar to the things you do as a parent, and vice versa, the things that you do as a parent mirror very closely the things you do as a coach. Now, I'm not saying for a second that when your children come back from a spelling test success, that they shake up cans of beer and spray them around the lounge and sing songs and bang bins and basically shout and hoop with that sort of victory. No, not at all. What I'm saying is for you as the coach or the parent, that there's a lot of parallels you can take and draw upon from both of those things. So if you are a coach and a parent, there's a double whammy of learning you can get. And I I don't think it's it's advisable to separate them, treat them the same. So when I first got into coaching, I loved this concept because I never thought I was going to be a coach. I loved the concept that I was helping people get better at what they wanted to do, that they I was helping people grow into better people. That's the bit which really excited me. It lit me up, and I and I noticed it straight away. And I believe that's a very common trait for for most coaches. There's an inherent bit where you love helping people to be better versions of themselves, to help them get to where they want to go to. And if it's just a little bit of spark that you can provide, that's the bit most coaches love. That knowing that you've helped someone on their journey. And as you get older, I reckon that magnifies intensely. And likewise, as your children get older, the same thing happens. As a parent, it's exactly the same. You want to be growing the best children you can. And in the concept being the best adults and people and community members you can. And it's the same principles all around. So I just want to dive into this. I dive into this a lot, but it's it's there's so many good stuff we can take away from your daily lives that can flow into training. And I want to talk about three which I absolutely love. And firstly, it's this that it's not soft when you're talking about parenting, and it's not soft when you're talking about coaching and combining the two. This, when you're love isn't a soft thing, and you know that with your kids, and my dad often talks about tough love. He gave me tough love, not because he particularly enjoyed it, but he knew it would be better for me in the long run. And his job as a parent, as he told me, is not to be my mate or my friend. That's not that wasn't his version of what a good father looked like, because he had to deliver some messages at times, and he knew he would, and he had to be tough and hard. And he didn't always deliver it well. That wasn't a strength of his, but the intention was excellent that he wanted me to be a better version of myself, and he had to lay down the law sometimes and set standards and let me know when I slipped up and give me feedback, very stern feedback at times, and administer some punishments uh which were received well, I believe, generally, not at the time, but reflection. Now, when I look back, I go, yeah, I can see what he was doing. And that's a big principle of coaching and parenting. You want to walk away at the end of it, knowing that your players or your children look back on your times and go, yeah, I saw I see what he was doing or she was doing, and man, they they they get they had the right intentions all round. They may have missed a few marks here and there. That's always going to happen. But the intention to grow me and to highlight things for me was there. So the the first thing that I want to talk about is just this concept of rapport. Rapport in your parenting, rapport in your coaching. And this I this concept, and Eddie Jones was the one that told me this was this coaching without resentment. I just love this phrase. Like when people know you care, you can deliver any sort of message in any sort of fashion. If they know the underlying sentiment is that you are caring for them. So if my players, if I'm talking to them about why they're not selected, and I'm doing it in such a way that they go, understood, that's okay. The amount of times I've had conversations of why I've told people why they have been not selected and delivered it in such a way that they've then gone, thank you, coach. And when you sit back and go, why would you say thank you? And because there's a rapport there, there's no resentment in that statement because you explain yourself well and they can you've built the rapport in behind the scenes. You've built a relationship underneath which they know you care. So when you're delivering this message, they know it's not a personal attack, they know it's just the facts. And I think that's that that's really important. Because when you when they know you care, they can be angry when they're my but when their emotion settles, what they're left with is the fact. And the fact is what you want them to have. And you want to say things like, This is why I'm doing this, this is why I think this is good for you. This is why we do things this way and not this way. Those sort of statements, if you've got a behind-the-scenes connection and rapport, they can land really well. If you don't, you can get that crossed arms looking down your nose ear, and you know that players are and and your kids too probably are thinking, This is absolute full of shit. Whatever's coming out of the mouth here, I don't believe it. That's because there's not that connection and genuine connection underneath, and that's called rapport. So, how you get that? Well, that's the art of coaching. That is the building, the cultural piece underneath getting to know people as they are, even your own children. Having those little one-on-one times with your kids is absolutely gold, and it's a great coaching practice to practice. I do this relatively regularly, and my wife and I make sure we tell each other, I think it's time you have a one-on-one with your elder son. It's time. He's he's going through a little stage at the moment. He probably needs his dad to just go for a walk around the block with him. So we'd regularly chip away. I love coffee. Like I love going down the cafe down the road. And and if my wife says, I think your youngest daughter needs a little bit of one-on-one time with dad, I'll say to her, Do you want to come and get a hot chocolate? And I'm gonna get a coffee. Would you like to join me? And pretty much when there's a hot chocolate on offer, that is accepted straight away. And in that time, we have these little heart-to-heart chats about how you doing, how's school, how are your friends? These sort of personal questions. And it can seem like it's there's no intent, there's no purpose behind it, but what it's laying down is foundations that when those difficult conversations come up, and they always will, whether that's as a parent or as a coach, you're not hiding away from them. You set the rapport up by having these conversations and these little moments, these little connection pieces where you can actually deliver the tough stuff which you need to give, the tough love, as dad said to me when I was younger. So take those moments, those little 1v1s, and get out of the loop and the grind and the rat race of the parenting working environment. Make those little moments. Sometimes sitting down, uh watching a show with your kids and just asking a couple of questions along the way is a great way to build that. And there's a million different ways to do it, but you build that, you build that with your players, you co-a little bit early, you chat, sit down and talk about anything else other than rugby with your players, and they feel special, they feel connected, they feel like you're listening and you care about them. So when you have to tell them they're dropped, they're more receptive and and they walk away with less resentment, which is the ultimate gauge of how well we are coaching. The second thing, which I think is really important, I do talk about this a lot, is the tone you take and saving your bullets as a as a coach and a parent, more so as a parent. If you keep talking in the same tone the whole time, you're going to create a bit of white noise, especially if it's that aggressive, ordery, shouty type, old school coachy, old school parenty style. Because it doesn't wash with today's kids. It doesn't wash with today's athletes either. And the the reason it doesn't wash a lot of the time is because it becomes white noise, just becomes the same old stuff over and over. If your two-year-old is running towards a busy road and you yell out, stop at the top of your voice. If you're always yelling at the top of your voice and shouting, it becomes something you don't really listen to. I don't really listen to dad. But if you never put that tone on, you only do it when it's absolutely required in those special moments. When you do do it, everyone stops and goes, Whoa, what the hell's going on here? Dad is losing it. There must be something super serious. Saying too as a coach, when there's behaviors which you don't see, you want to be able to leap on them with a voice and a tone and an attitude like they've never seen before. So they go, Whoa, I better stop. And you can't do that if you're always semi-in that state. You've got to have a balance to you. You've got to have a differentiation in tone and how you apply your voice. And that's massive. So the art of that is essentially public speaking in a lot of ways, because and and not just public, but in those quiet moments too. You've got to be able to raise and fall. I think it's massively important. And saving your bullets, your powerful dad voice, your powerful coach's voice, save that for the real special occasions where it needs to land. You need your words to land. Save it for then. That's my absolute gold advice. The old school shoutie coach days, long gone unless it's genuinely you and you've got a softer version to yourself. There's my thoughts. Think it's important. I reckon if you if you don't change your tone, practice it. Go to Toastmasters. I love this place. Toastmasters public speaking place. You get to practice free, available across the world. If in your city, if you Google Toastmasters, you will have multiple options to go to these weekly public speaking courses for free and do the courses, and you get better out of sight. You get feedback every time from both experienced speakers and non-experienced speakers, and that's wonderful to get. So highly recommend that to fix and grow your tone as both a parent and a leader and a coach. Number three, three, is it goes along with um that resentment piece is this concept is to be the parent or the coach that your children or your players are proud of. Now, this is a weird kind of statement for a lot of people, but this is not a stuff statement. You don't when you're saying you want your kids to be proud of you, that that doesn't mean that you're this soft, nicely, nicely, all that stuff parent, loose with rules. In fact, probably the complete opposite. And certainly with my kids being the example, is kids actually want direction. They want a little bit of edge. They want you to have clarity to pull them up when they're getting it wrong, because they need it. They don't know it. And they really appreciate it so long as you have the rapport and you have appropriate tone. So a kid wants to be proud of their parent in all facets, right? Like they just want to go, yeah, cool. They're actually being a really cool father, a really cool mother here around this. And and and even if there's emotional parts to that, who cares? Like you when that emotion settles, because teenagers will have emotions, they'll be blowouts all the time. What you want is when they settle and they regather themselves, they go, okay, I get it. Yeah, they're actually just caring for me. And that is a massive thing. Same with your coaches. You want your as a coach, you want your players to be proud of you as a coach, to go, yeah, mate, he's cool and speak highly of you. And again, you get that by good rapport individually with people, good tone, both individually and collectively. And so your players go home from your sessions, whether it was a half-pi session or the world's best session, and they tell their parents or their partners and their wives or husbands, and when they ask, they say, How was training? They go, It was awesome today. Coach was awesome today. He said a couple of things about X, Y, and Z, which were cool. And then he did this and that. And that is something which is cool for a coach. The last thing you really want, and I know you don't need to worry about what everyone thinks, but it it you kind of want your players to be your evangelists of you as a coach, to be your cheerleaders on the sidelines. So when someone says how was training, they go, Yeah, it was awesome. Uh, we did this and this, which could be a standard drill, but it's the way you deliver it, the way you are as a coach, the way you set the culture and the environment and the learning that's involved, you want you want the feedback, those cheerleaders to be shaking their pom-poms as loud as they can about you. Now, there's a real art to that. There's a lot of things. And it always comes back to what this show is about is that cultural piece, the environment place, creating an environment suitable for growth. Now, if you're genuinely doing that and making every effort and and being quirky and different and experimenting and being brave and courageous and trying stuff and engaging and bringing the players aboard, you're going to get people that say, I love what this coach is doing. And they tell people about it. Now, that's special. And that's what you want, and that's what you're striving to do. So the three things I think in this whole concept of this reflections piece, which I've been reflecting on today, that coaching is parenting and parenting is coaching, the three things you can do on both of those fronts, because they're the same, you're trying to grow people better, is one, to make sure there's a rapport that underlines all individual relationships. And that rapport is just a connection piece. And that's you as a human making sure you're getting given the best opportunity you can to connect with another human. And so that when it comes to those hard times, those hard conversations which will inevitably happen and you want to happen, you're you've got a great bass to lay it out straight. Number two is the tone, that concept of save your bullets. Your voice are your weapon. As a coach, that's what you've got. You can't play this game anymore. I certainly can't. Knees a shot. All I've got is my voice, my brain to connect it, to work it. And I've got to use it like it's an instrument, like a musical instrument. I've got to play it well. And you want to play it well, otherwise it sounds terrible. If you've ever heard me on the guitar or worth the recorder, which I was forced to play as a primary school student, it's horrendous and you won't stay in the room. But anyone that can play the guitar well and sing well to it draws people in and they listen. And what we want is people listen to our voices. So when we have stern messages, they land well because people are listening with big ears. As Mike Cron says, listen with big ears. Number three is that reflection piece of start at the end point. You want to be the coach, you want to be the parent that your players or your children are proud of in the long run. And there will be short-term blips for sure. You're gonna have to say some stuff at times, you're gonna have to make players do some fitness stuff, which they're not gonna like, and you're gonna have to bark at times. But you want them to be proud when they sit back and the sessions are done, the seasons are done, and their careers are done, and they're proud that they had you as a coach. And when your children are at your saying your eulogy, which is a pretty morbid thing, but when they're saying that, you want them to say the same things uh at your funeral. You want them to be really proud. The quicker we can bring that back into present tense, the better. So if they go home from a training and say it, if they go home, if they go to bed at night, your kids, if they say it then, you're on to a winner. Team, that's that's the reflections piece for today. Hope something in there landed. Hope there's a spark for someone. If you do have a thought, if you do have a reflection, I I love the amount of people that are reaching out to me, especially on LinkedIn. That's the platform which I enjoy. So if this if something sparked in here, give me a bell, drop me a personal message, ask me questions. I enjoy replying back and I will reply to everyone back. Um yeah, let me know how it lands. Let me know any thoughts that I can raise questions for for these little reflection pieces. I love just chipping away on a Wednesday morning, thinking about what people have said, thinking about my own experiences and relaying them back and hoping you get a bit of something out of yourself. See you next week.