Coaches Advice on dealing with preschoolers scared male coaches

[Coachcoco]

Hi all!
I'm open to advice on this, and I need to vent a bit lol. I have a wonderful preschool coach who is male. Maybe I'm biased because he is my employee, but he is amazing with the prek ages. Very soft spoken and most kids adore him. I also always put him with a female coach (he is an assistant and currently my only male prek coach). However, understandably I have some prek girls who are scared of him. I understand some kids will be weary of grown men for a multitude of reasons.
Most of the time the parents are cool about it and want to work with their kids to become comfortable with male coaches. Because what happens when they have a male coach/teacher at school? Or another extra curricular?
How do you handle parents that are rude about this situation? Sometimes I'll get parents who act irritated and make rude remarks when their kid is afraid and won't participate in class because the male coach is there. This I don't understand. I don't want to make my male coaches feel like they've done something wrong or make them feel awkward in any way. I can also sympathize with little ones that are scared. It seems like a no win situation at times!
Anyway, how do you coaches deal with this?

 

[gymcoach34]

This is tough. I would say a patient approach as the kids get used to the coach, but if it's classes, and the child/ parent is really uncomfortable, be flexible with them switching classes. It's a scary world out there, and most likely the kids fears are mirrors off the parents fears- and you don't know that parents' history. Could you move him to some older classes instead?

 

[Coachcoco]

This is tough. I would say a patient approach as the kids get used to the coach, but if it's classes, and the child/ parent is really uncomfortable, be flexible with them switching classes. It's a scary world out there, and most likely the kids fears are mirrors off the parents fears- and you don't know that parents' history. Could you move him to some older classes instead?

It's very tough! I could, however I don't want to "punish" him just for being male. It doesn't seem fair. I have no problem with kids switching classes to accommodate fears, but they also have to know that coaches are subject to change (I do try to keep staffing consistent) but you just never know with call offs, vacations etc I do have to put him in to cover at times. Again, most kids have no issue. And if some do, most parents work with them on it to help them become comfortable. I don't usually have parents that are rude about it. It's so tough!