Sports Parents’ Negative Attitudes

Sports-related stress and anxiety caused by parents’ behavior

Sports-related stress and anxiety are felt by young people because their parents behave badly during these extracurricular activities. Mothers don’t considerably differ from fathers in terms of the volume and frequency of their critical comments. Notably, the parents of the athletes make up the majority of the spectators at youth sports, and their inappropriate behavior tends to make the kids less happy and more anxious (Keegan, Spray, Harwood & Lavallee, 2010). The way that these activities are regarded has an impact on young people. Fathers tend to take on directive duties, whilst mothers tend to engage in praising and are generally more motivating. Consequently, the youth do not enjoy participating in the sports because they are denied freedom of making their own decisions. Also, this behavior of parents diverts the concentration of the children in the activities since they find themselves paying much attention to their parents’ comments than the game itself.

Parenting behavior and its impact on youth sports

Parenting behavior is perhaps as a result of the cognitive and social experiences in previous sporting activities, the sport contexts, and the characteristics of the individual parent. The perceptions of the norms of the sportsmanship and behaviors of the coaches, parents, and teammates ought to be considered as the probable primary sources of negative social influence on youths (Merkel, 2013). Under perceived provocation, male parents more often demonstrate greater offensive and direct aggression and verbal assaults compared to the female. As a result, the coaches find it difficult to get the best out of the children because the youths feel offended by the feedback from their parents.

The role of parents in shaping children’s sports experience

Most parents frequently offer directions, criticism, and feedback to their children concerning their abilities and skills in sports. The beliefs and attitudes developed by parents emanate from the potential future benefits that they believe their children would get from participating in sports such as hopes for playing professionally and college scholarships (Eime et al., 2013). These perspectives vary depending on the type of sports; athletics, baseball, football, and basketball. Parents usually provide and interpret the sports experience for their children in their early years. In the United States, youth sport is among the most organized, popular, and well-structured activity with over 45 million children (Sánchez-Miguel et al., 2013). Contemporary researches postulate that the primary cause of these negative behaviors is the parents’ unrealistic expectations of the youths. Fathers and mothers believe that they have a right to decide what their children should or ought not to do.

The impact of coaches and spectators on players’ performance

Players’ perception of coaches and the behavior of spectators significantly impact on their performance in the sport activities (Harwood & Knight, 2015). Aggression of parents in the sport activities of their children can be conceptualized as the probable product of the relationship of personal social factors, within the environments in which the events are set, and can perhaps be explained by social and rational concepts of behavior. Also, parents’ involvement as active participants in youth sport undergoes a variety of cognitive, behavioral, relational, and effective changes and these variations have been described as parent sport socialization in sport literature.

Negative behaviors of parents and their effects on young athletes

Negative behaviors of parents in sport are usually exhibited in various ways and are demonstrated either verbally or non-verbally on the sidelines. The comments from spectators instill more stress on the side of the participants because the children have a burden of dealing with the pressure of excelling in their game while regarding the way their mothers and fathers will perhaps react to how they perform in the event. Predominant reaction from the moms and dads is often correcting the youths during the sport activities and as a result, the parents are seen to take the coaching role.

The importance of positive parental support

Definitely, participation in sports is perhaps a healthy and significant component of children’s development. Research have depicted that positive support from parents is directly correlated to the positive experience of the youth who participate in sport (Harwood, Drew & Knight, 2010). Studies further show that a significant number of fathers and mothers exhibit reinforcing comments in most games participated by their children. The primary consequence of these comments from spectators is that the children are distracted by the excessive directives from the sidelines and learning is prohibited because the participant just follows their parents’ instructions. Further research advocates that for the youth to enjoy and learn from sporting activities, they should be allowed to be the decision makers during the events. As noted, most comments made by parents are usually meant to direct and correct the strategies and techniques of the players especially in soccer and basketball.

The pressure of winning and its impact on youth sport

When parents get so much involved with their children, from the sidelines during sports events, they unintentionally create stress and pressure on the players (Coakley, 2011). Some spectators make comments as a way of motivating the children or in attempt to direct them while on the field to do something different. Verbal reactions from parents change in soccer games depending on the performance of their children’s team. Researches indicate that coaches face pressure from parents and the most problematic behavior in youth sport is overemphasis on winning (Salmon, Tremblay, Marshall & Hume, 2011).

References

Coakley, J. (2011). Youth sports: What counts as “positive development?”. Journal of sport and social issues, 35(3), pp. 306-324.

Eime, R. M., Young, J. A., Harvey, J. T., Charity, M. J., & Payne, W. R. (2013). A systematic review of the psychological and social benefits of participation in sport for children and adolescents: informing development of a conceptual model of health through sport. International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity, 10(1), p. 98.

Harwood, C. G., & Knight, C. J. (2015). Parenting in youth sport: A position paper on parenting expertise. Psychology of sport and exercise, 16, pp. 24-35.

Harwood, C., Drew, A., & Knight, C. J. (2010). Parental stressors in professional youth football academies: A qualitative investigation of specialising stage parents. Qualitative research in sport and exercise, 2(1), pp. 39-55.

Keegan, R., Spray, C., Harwood, C., & Lavallee, D. (2010). The motivational atmosphere in youth sport: Coach, parent, and peer influences on motivation in specializing sport participants. Journal of applied sport psychology, 22(1), pp. 87-105.

Merkel, D. L. (2013). Youth sport: Positive and negative impact on young athletes. Open access journal of sports medicine, 4, pp. 151.

Salmon, J., Tremblay, M. S., Marshall, S. J., & Hume, C. (2011). Health risks, correlates, and interventions to reduce sedentary behavior in young people. American journal of preventive medicine, 41(2), pp. 197-206.

Sánchez-Miguel, P. A., Leo, F. M., Sánchez-Oliva, D., Amado, D., & García-Calvo, T. (2013). The importance of parents’ behavior in their children’s enjoyment and amotivation in sports. Journal of human kinetics, 36(1), 169-177.