What is a coachable moment?
It’s a moment when someone needs or wants help, and someone else is able to step in – to say the right thing at the right moment. We all have both of them, coaching and being coached.
My husband, Chuck, has been a coach most of his adult life. I, too, have worked with students for many years, though as a teacher and counselor. Something he shared with me years ago has stuck with me. He said that all he needed from a kid was that they be “coachable”. Whenever I would ask, usually in frustration, what that meant he would calmly say, “ They have to be ready to hear you...willing to learn.” What he rarely would add, but I knew was true, was that the coach needed to be ready, too. Watching for the right moment to step in, to give the technical advice or the pat on the back, or the sharp reminder. Of course, they needed to know how to help a kid, – what to tell them that would move them forward. But, probably more important, they needed to be in tune with when to give that advice, and how. To look for the “coachable moment.”
Recently, I was talking to a parent who was worried about his kids. I could tell by the look in his eyes that he was out of his depth. This friend is a very smart guy so I explained my “coachable moment” theory as it relates to parenting: As we try to help someone we care about, we often find that the advice we are so desperate to share (and that would help them if they took it) is falling on not just deaf ears, but angry ears. It is a frustrating feeling as a coach or teacher but, as a parent, it can be terrifying. It’s as if this beloved child, this soon to be adult, has blocked our calls. They have figured us out, and have rejected us.
What to do? The coachable moment would tell you to watch for your chance. To be ever vigilant. Then, when there is an opening, grab it! That sounds opportunistic I know, but parenting can be rough. We parents don’t have a lot of opportunities to be heard after our kids are a certain age. So, wait, smile, and be ready.
Here are two examples from my parental coaching that fall at opposite ends of the effective parenting scale.
The first happened when one of our sons went away to a much anticipated military summer camp. During that camp he excelled at everything he was given to do. We were no part of this world. And that felt good to him, really good. The problems began when we went to pick him up. After the ceremonies and good byes my formerly gregarious and talkative child would hardly answer a direct question. He was surly and dismissive. I felt like he had been stolen and a nasty body -double had replaced him. After a few hours of this I had had enough. I blew up, telling him that he had no right to treat us like we were disgusting parasites and that if he didn’t cut it out he would be sorry. Needless to say that did not change him back to our former son. He just retreated further. Eventually he pulled out of it, but it wasn’t because I “called him on it”. It just happened – thank goodness.
Fast forward many years later and our other son is going through a very rough patch. He’s not rude but he has completely disengaged and I am worried about him. But I have learned a thing or two in the intervening years and after asking him if he is ok a few times and getting a grunt-like response, I stop asking. But I don’t stop being alert. Remember, that’s one of the secrets of being a good coach and the coachable moment. You have to be available, to let them know you still care. And it happened. When he was ready to ask for help I was there. I put down what I was doing and was still. There is a sacredness to that sort of moment – when one heart speaks to another heart.
It is a rarity in parenting and I wonder why. Maybe it’s because we try so hard to fix what is wrong in our kid’s lives that we forget they have to feel they fixed it on their own for it to stick. And that takes faith and patience and humility on our part. It also takes some skill. We need to be the kind of people who can help our kids when they are hurting. Who have learned it’s not all about us, so we can hear our children’s differing opinions. Who have paid attention over the course of our own lives to the big questions so that we are able to point them in the right direction. Much like that coach who can say, “Drop your shoulders.” or “Keep your feet quiet” because of the thousands of hours he has watched his runners. And kids know – know they need good advice, not just sympathy or your worry.
As you do this you will find that these moments are often unexpected. They happen when you are alone in the car, or cooking dinner together or even at a track meet. They come to you because you are ready and watching for them and you are willing to step forward and say, “Let me see if I can help.” They are magical and mundane and transformative, for both of you. And, when done well, they build on the foundation of love and trust you’ve both been adding to since they were born.
BEING A COACH LOOKS EASY WHEN IT’S DONE RIGHT.
SO DOES BEING A GOOD PARENT. THAT DOESN’T MEAN IT IS.
So, to all the coaches, teachers and parents out there, Hang In There! You play a supporting role, not the lead. As you remember that, it may well be you find that more and more coachable moments appear in your life – as the coach and as the athlete. It does us all good to be “ready to hear a wiser voice . . . willing to learn.” Coachable.
