Recreational sports are widely promoted as settings where children develop valuable life skills such as independence, adaptability, resilience, and teamwork. However, these outcomes depend heavily on how adults structure and interpret children’s participation. This qualitative study investigates how coaches perceive children's agency in recreational sports and explores its external influences. Agency is described as relational and context-dependent, and the study focuses on independence, adaptability, resilience and teamwork as expressions of agency.  Data was collected through semi-structured interviews with ten coaches from Italy and Slovenia who work with children in different sports. Thematic analysis revealed that coaches generally valued children's independence, but often struggled balancing encouraging independence and maintaining structure, safety, and adult-defined goals. Resilience was highly valued but often equated with emotional self-control and behavioral compliance, raising concerns about adult-centric definitions of “appropriate” behavior. Regarding teamwork and adaptability, coaches acknowledged them as both pragmatic tools for managing groups and moral ideals for children's broader social development. Coaches viewed children’s agency in a developmental and future-oriented way, struggling particularly with the need to safeguard children, but at the same time often recognized children as competent social actors in the present. They saw themselves as pedagogues, models, protectors, and activists of “their” children against rising external pressures from parents and society that increasingly expect quick results.  The findings highlight the complexity of fostering children's agency in adult-led recreational sports and underscore the need for reflexive coaching practices that balance structure with genuine opportunities for child-led participation. The study contributes to Child Studies by illustrating how adult perceptions, institutional constraints, and broader cultural expectations shape children's agency in sport.