Parents should feel free to arrange meetings with their child’s coach to discuss their son or daughter. As one of our experienced coaches writes to her parents every year, “at some point this season, you are going to disagree with me.” Sometimes you should communicate a perceived problem to the coach, and sometimes you should not.

• As players mature, they are expected to try to resolve issues between themselves and their coach without parental intervention.

Guidelines and policies regarding these discussions:

• Keep the meeting focused on the player

  • Good topics: the player

    • what a player might or can do differently to earn more playing time (keeping in mind that, as noted in the “evaluation and selection” section, there are no guarantees with respect to position or a specific or minimum amount of playing time in games).

    • problems that may affect the player’s training or game performance

    • problems they might have with other players on the team

    • injuries or other health concerns

    • other issues concerning the player

  • Bad topics: coaching decisions or other players on the team

    • positions you think certain players should play

    • playing time in the past

    • your opinions about other players

    • team formations

• Talk to the right person

  • If you have an issue that should be discussed with the coach, bring it to them – and not other parents or the team manager. Don't burden the manager, whose role is team administration, with issues that are properly the coach's.

  • Players and parents should recognize that it is always best to resolve issues directly with the coach. However, if they feel they can not discuss a sensitive topic with their coach, they should communicate with the Director of Soccer Operations.

• When to meet

  • Please defer to the coach’s wishes about what times, places, and means of communication are appropriate. Immediately before, during or after a game, or during a practice, is not the appropriate time. Many coaches do not want to have parent conferences on game days, and may also ask that parents cool off for 24 hours before discussing an issue that arose in a game. Each coach should communicate their preferences to the parents at a team meeting, and parents should respect those wishes.

• Please respect your coach’s time

  • The coach has a limited amount of time to allocate to each of their players and each of their teams. Parents are asked to respect their coach’s time and not take up a disproportionate amount of it compared to other parents and players, or to keep revisiting the same topics. While the club expects coaches to respond promptly and professionally to a reasonable level of parent communication, a coach may limit their responses or take other action if they feel that a parent is placing undue requirements on their time. If the parent disagrees, they may follow the escalation process described below.

Escalation process

• If the problem is not resolved by the coach, the parent should then contact the Area Director, if the the matter is still not resoved, the parent should contact Director of Soccer Operations;

• In most cases you will be able to resolve your issues/ questions by speaking with the coach and/or Director of Soccer Operations.  If not, you can contact one of the members of the Travel Leadership Committee ("TLC").  The TLC will designate an individual or committee to make an investigation and report back, at which point the TLC will make a final decision on the issue. The Board’s decisions are final and players and parents must abide by them. 

• Parents should recognize that PSC will place the interests of the club ahead of any one team, and the interests of a team ahead of any individual player. By joining PSC, you agree that you will abide by the club's priorities.