Parents: Dealing with Vague Feedback

Well, Stop It Goal. Before we get to Hutch and his brilliance and his experience as a goalie parent, did you know you can tap into twenty five years of NHL goaltending coaching expertise, all at your fingertips, all in your tablet or your phone? Tap into goalie parenting expertise that helped Joey Daccord reach the NHL. That's what you get with a subscription to Stop It Goaltending U, the app. All the knowledge from Brian Daccord, who has been an NHL goalie coach, scout, and director, as well as all the insights and expertise from his staff at Stop It, including a long list of veteran NCAA goalie coaches, all delivered weekly, actually daily, in easy to digest chunks, including five short primers every week, weekly style analysis, breakdown videos, and drills you can take onto the ice with your team and coach.

Plus, best of both worlds situation, folks. When you buy a subscription to Stop It Goaltending U the app, you automatically get a subscription to InGoal Magazine Premium. Make sure you check it out on the App Store or Google Play Store and get the best of both. Stop It Goaltending U and InGoal Magazine Premium.

It's a masterclass with Hutch.

Guys, this week, I wanted to talk about well, like, it's based on a question from from a parent about a coach questioning their goalie's work ethic and then kind of expand it. What about other vague criticism? It's difficult. Goalies get this all the time. It's, and it comes up more and more as you move up in the game.

This vague criticism for coaches who want you to do something, but they don't really know what it is. The first thing as a parent that you need to get right is that this conversation belongs between the goalie and the coach. I know we all want to rush in there and save them. We want to rush in them and make it better, but let's help them help themselves. It's fair.

It's actually healthy for a parent to encourage their child to ask for some clarity. It's not to defend themselves. It's not to argue the outcomes. It's not to it's just to understand what the coach means. Just just ask, can you help me understand what you're seeing?

It's a powerful question. And so is, what would you like me to do differently? And it does a couple of important things. It puts ownership where it belongs with the goalie, and it also turns that vague comment from the coach into something that's more actionable, something your goalie can do. Or it might just reveal that it wasn't a very specific or good question in the first place from the coach.

Here's an important truth for goalie parents. It only gets harder as the level goes up. The feedback gets shorter. The stakes are higher. Coach or a GM will just say, need you to be better.

Explanations are going to get fewer. Learning how to receive vague or imperfect criticism without unraveling or lashing back is a real developmental skill. Heck, it's hard for us adults. Your role isn't to fix it. Your role is to help them learn how to handle it.

And if they come away from a conversation with a coach with clear direction, great. If they don't, that's information too. Either way, the growth comes from how they respond, not from whether the comment was fair in the first place. Now, how do you help a young goalie let go of that vague imperfect criticism? Well, the old just let it go, it isn't very helpful.

You have to teach that skill. They have to experience it to learn how to deal with it. But here's a few specific things as a parent that you can do to help. One, teach them to sort the feedback they get into a couple of different buckets. After a comment from a coach, help your goalie ask themselves, is there anything specific I can learn here or control, I should say?

Or is it just noise? If there's something concrete, effort and drills, body language, practice habits, keep it. Try and act on it. If it's vague or emotional, it doesn't need to be carried forward. You can just say, I'm gonna keep the useful part of this conversation and we are going to drop the rest.

Yeah, I know that sounds like just teaching them to ignore it, but I think the skill of sorting through the criticism is is really helpful. Second, reframe something like work ethic as visible behaviors. Goalies often hear things that are vague like work ethic, and they feel it is an attack on themselves. We need to help them translate it into actions instead. Is it competing on rebounds?

Is it staying engaged between reps? Is it how they respond after a goal, energy and practice? See, I'm not just saying if the coach's comment is vague and if they can't give a good answer, just ignore it. I'm saying you also need to filter that comment and see if you can turn it into something more focused. Now, also as a parent, the third thing is to model what I would say, calm curiosity, not being defensive.

If a parent in this situation reacts with anger, sarcastic comment or blame, something I must say I've done before myself, the goalie learns that criticism from somebody else is dangerous. If a parent though stays calm and curious, the goalie learns that it's something they can manage. So a simple script that a parent might use to reinforce, I don't need to agree with it. I just need to understand it. That mindset alone lowers sort of the emotional charge in the situation.

Fourth, help them decide when the feedback deserves action and when it doesn't. Not every comment deserves a response or change. Parents can just help by asking, does this align with what you already know and what you need to work on? Is this coming from someone who sees you a lot, like your goalie coach maybe, and knows your game? If it does, then you should probably act.

And if it's just from somebody who doesn't know you very well, who you are, the position, whatever, acknowledge it and move on. Letting go doesn't mean ignoring it. It just means choosing. Fifth, keep the parent role here clear. As I've said before, you're here to support.

You're not here to sort of prosecute the case. One of the biggest gifts a parent can give is this message. You don't need me to fight this for you. I trust you to handle it. That's gonna build independence and emotional durability.

The goal isn't to make criticism disappear. It's to teach goalies that they can hear it, process it, keep what helps, and leave the rest behind. That's a skill that's gonna matter long after hockey's done. Now I can hear some of you saying this is tough for a young goalie, so here we go. Next week, we are gonna give some thoughts on supporting goalies of all ages in learning how to advocate for themselves.

Well done, Hutch.

Thank you.

A lot of thought in there. A lot of challenges in there. A lot of different avenues that you can choose in there.

Quickly becoming the best part of the InGoal Radio Podcast. That's

good stuff. I don't know. You and look. I say this all the time. I'm not on my preach soapbox saying I know how to do this better than anybody else.

I've made all these mistakes. That's why they come up. And you know your child better than I do, and you have to do that, what is best for you and your family. I'm just giving you a few thoughts that, maybe will help as you're moving along the the path of being a goalie parent.

As somebody who does a really poor job taking criticism, I appreciated it.

Oh, I'm terrible at taking criticism. I'm horrible

It's almost like you have to consciously take emotion out of it while you're taking criticism. Like, you have to shut down that side of your brain. At least I do. Or else I'll be twitching in the chair and bobbing.

Billy Smith and things come in.

[crosstalk] But Yeah. I just tend to remember. But Yeah. I just tend to feel the emotion and hang on to it for months or years.

Decades in my case.

Yeah. It is a tough skill.