The parents' guide

Junior tennis careers are made and broken in the car. TierBreak is built to make you the asset — here's the operating manual for your side of it.

The car ride home

The most important coaching session of the week happens in a Honda, 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?" — questions about their experience, not your scoreboard.
Never coach the match in the car. The MMPR reflection in the app already captured their own read, and their one focus for next time. Trust the loop.

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.

Consent, COPPA, and who controls what

Under 13: no account, no login. You create and fully control the player profile; the app records your consent when you create it. You can review, edit, or delete everything at any time.
13 and up: the athlete can hold their own login, connected to your family account via an invite from your app.
No ads, no data sales, no third-party analytics. Account deletion is in the app — 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 Proof shows a pressure dip, say nothing at dinner. It's a training assignment, not a dinner topic — the Pathway already assigned it.
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.

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: New to tennis? Start here →