The first is when a mother told me it took her three practices to realize which child was mine. This told me that I was treating my child as a member of the team in all aspects of the practice. I instructed him as I did the other team members, spending as much individual time with him as I did with the other players but also insisting he follow the same rules as his teammates and not take advantage of Dad being the head coach. No matter what reasons a parent becomes a coach the challenges are the same. The biggest challenge is how to treat your own child as a member of the team.
Parents tend to treat their child in one of two ways.
The first is by being harder on their child than the other team members. Regardless of the reason it should be avoided. An example from my personal experience happened during a recent hockey game when I removed my son from the game because his shift was over and he began crying because he had not shot on goal yet. I took a minute and recalled how I previously handled a similar situation with another player and realized I had made a mistake. I learned an important lesson as a parent-coach that game.