The parents' guide

Your job tonight is small. After practice, open the app with your athlete and log the session: what they did, how long, how good the work was, 1 to 5. That wins the day. Do it for a week and Sunday's Weekly Review shows the first real picture. Everything below is about being the asset while it builds.

The car ride home

The most important coaching session of the week happens as you leave the parking lot, and most of us blow it by reviewing the match while the sweat's still wet. The rules that work:

First line: "I love watching you play." Full stop. Then food.
Let them open the door. If they want to talk tennis, they will. If they don't, the match conversation can wait a day; it keeps.
Ask questions that open, not grade. The app's parent module includes car-ride prompts like "What was the most fun point you played?" and "What did you figure out about your opponent?" These are questions about their experience, not your scoreboard.
Never coach the match in the car. The post-match reflection in the app already captured their own read, and their one focus for next time. Trust the loop.

And after a live-tracked match, the app can write you a car-ride brief, an optional AI note for the parent only: what actually decided the match, what's worth saying on the drive, what to skip, and one question that opens conversation. Written once per match, only with a guardian's AI consent on record, never for an athlete under 13, and never shown to the athlete.

Watching without coaching

While you track points, you have a job, and it's not signals from the fence (which are against the rules anyway). The tracking loop is designed to keep your hands busy and your face neutral. Your athlete reads your body language between every point; calm scoreboard parent beats agonized superfan parent, every time.

What you can and can't see, on purpose

You see participation everywhere: sessions logged, steps completed, days won, match data, the evidence. But the athlete's journal entries and certain personal worksheets are private to them. You'll see that they journaled, never what they wrote.

Why this is a feature: a 14-year-old's match journal is only honest if it's theirs. The honesty is what makes the mental training work. Guard their privacy and you're guarding the results.

Ratings exposure is your call and here is why

In Settings → Ratings & Path visibility, you decide what your athlete sees of the ratings world: hide the Path screen from their login entirely, show only WTN, only UTR, or everything. It takes effect on their phone, they can't change it, and you keep full visibility on your own login either way. Their training, matches, and Win the Day are untouched; this controls exposure to the numbers, not the work.

Why would a family hide a rating? Because a rating is a lagging outcome the athlete can't directly control. A kid who anchors to a number they cannot move tonight learns anxiety; a kid who anchors to the work they can do tonight learns the craft. TierBreak is built on that: the daily and weekly layers never mention a rating at all.

A useful rule of thumb by age and stage: younger or newer competitors rarely benefit from watching a number that swings on every event: win the day, stack the week, and let the trajectory be a parents' dashboard. As recruiting years approach, the number becomes a practical tool the athlete may want to own. Turn it on then, together, and it arrives as information rather than identity. There's no wrong setting; there's only what serves this kid, this season.

Consent, COPPA, and who controls what

Under 13: they can have their own login, but only if you create it yourself from Settings, inside your own signed-in session; that session is the confirmation it is really you. A child under 13 is never invited, and the sign-in lives on an address we own and never deliver mail to, so password recovery is always yours. That login has no AI features and no private writing: you can read everything. You can withdraw your agreement at any time in Settings and the login stops working. You can also simply not invite them and manage the profile yourself.
13 and up: the athlete can hold their own login, connected to your family account via an invite from your app. At this age their journal is private to them unless they share an entry, and AI features run only if they consent.
No ads, no data sales, no third-party analytics. Account deletion is in the app under Settings → Delete account, not behind a support ticket. The whole policy is two scrolls long on purpose.

Reading the data like a parent, not a scout

Open the Weekly Review together on Sundays. Let them drive. Celebrate one process win.
When the match numbers show a pressure dip, say nothing at dinner. It's a training assignment, not a dinner topic.
The streak is theirs, not yours. Asking "did you do your mental session?" daily converts an internal habit into your nagging. The app reminds; you cheer.
Propose goals; don't assign them. You can suggest a weekly target from your phone, but it activates only when your athlete accepts it. That accept button is the healthiest thing in the app. Propose, then let it be theirs. How goals work →

When you're new to tennis too

Start with New to tennis? Start here: scoring, tournament levels, ratings, and the survival kit. You don't need to know tennis to be world-class at this job. You need snacks, calm, and "I love watching you play."

Next: Your first Weekly Review → New to the sport yourself? The primer. No invite yet? Join the Inner Circle.