He’s eleven. He gets in the car after a hard practice. He says, can you email coach about the position thing?

It is tempting to say yes. He is upset. You have the time. You know how to write a polite email. The thing he wants you to address is real.

Don’t say yes.

Why this is the wrong call

Email from a parent at eleven teaches the kid to outsource conflict. He learns that the way to deal with a coach is to ask his mom to handle it. By fourteen he will be unable to advocate for himself. By eighteen he will struggle in college, in jobs, in relationships.

The skill of asking a hard question of an adult is the skill. He needs to build it.

What to say in the car

I hear you. I’m not going to email coach. You’re going to talk to him yourself. I’ll help you figure out what to say.

The kid will protest. He won’t listen to me. I don’t know what to say. It’s weird.

All of those are true. They are also the reason this is the conversation he needs to have.

How to help him plan it

Ask three questions. What do you actually want to know? What’s the question in one sentence? When’s a good time to ask it?

The first answer is usually fuzzy. I want him to play me at point guard. The cleaner version is I want to know what I’d need to do to get more time at point guard.

The second answer is the script. Coach, can I have two minutes after practice Tuesday? I want to know what you’re looking for from me to expand my role.

The third answer is timing. Not after a loss. Not before a game. The Tuesday or Wednesday before a normal practice, in the parking lot, briefly.

What you do during the conversation

You don’t go. You don’t stand near. You drop him off at practice, drive away, come back at the normal time.

When he gets in the car, ask one question. How’d it go? Then listen.

If it went well, say that took guts. If it went poorly, say that took guts too. What did you learn?

The longer arc

The kid who learns at eleven to ask his coach a hard question becomes the seventeen-year-old who handles the playing-time conversation himself, with no parent involvement. That kid is the one college coaches notice in the recruiting process, because they can tell which kids have done their own talking.

The kid whose parents emailed every coach for him at eleven is the kid the college coach senses immediately and does not recruit, because the parent is going to be on the phone every week of the kid’s freshman year.

When to actually email the coach

Three reasons. Safety. A pattern of behavior you’ve documented. A logistical question that has nothing to do with playing time, lineup, or strategy.

Outside those three, the kid should be the one talking. Even if the conversation goes badly. Especially if the conversation goes badly. The badly-handled conversation at eleven is the well-handled conversation at fifteen.

The email you didn’t send is the parent skill you can practice for the next decade.