Coaching is a dynamic role that encompasses multiple demands within the social environment (e.g., managing athletes, working with administrators, communicating with parents). Due to the high pressure and workload, coaches commonly report negative work outcomes such as burnout (Altfeld et al., 2018). There are various social agents in the sport setting that can contribute to the demands of coaching. Parents are among them and have been understudied by sport burnout researchers. Parental interactions can be positive, characterized by supportive behavior, or negative, characterized by controlling behavior. Self-Determination Theory (SDT; Ryan & Deci, 2000) posits that such interactions have the potential to influence the well-being of coaches by supporting or thwarting their basic psychological needs (i.e., competence, autonomy, relatedness). Whereas need satisfaction is theorized to mitigate burnout perceptions, need thwarting may amplify burnout perceptions. The purpose of this study was to examine if perceptions of supportive and controlling behavior from parents are associated with burnout in coaches through satisfaction and thwarting of basic psychological needs. High school coaches (N =192, Mage= 43.43, SDage= 11.85) were recruited to take an online survey assessing their perceptions of supportive and controlling behaviors from parents, psychological need satisfaction and thwarting, and burnout. Observed variable path analysis showed perceptions of autonomy supportive parent behavior to be associated with lower levels of coach burnout through need satisfaction and thwarting. Controlling parent behavior was not reliably measured and therefore was not modeled. Overall, the findings suggest that coaches’ perceptions of parent behavior are important to consider when examining coach burnout perceptions.
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