Being A Good Sports Parent
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by user ActiveSports
According to the National Council on Youth Sports, almost 30 million boys and girls under 18 play some kind of organized sport like Little League or soccer. For many of them, it's a way to make new friends and play a game they enjoy.
But over the last decade, more otherwise well-meaning parents have been pushing their budding stars to excel at almost any cost. Children as young as 3 can sign up for swimming and gymnastics programs. Soccer often starts at 4 and baseball at 5. From there it's become increasingly common for parents to rush the kids into highly competitive situations when they're barely out of diapers.
Parents should take note: A 2001 study by the National Alliance for Youth Sports found that 70 percent of American kids who sign up for sports quit by the time they were 13. The reason? They said it wasn't fun anymore.
As reported by Jane Weaver of MSNBC, that hyper-competitive atmosphere can translate into overly involved parents ready to explode at any coach, referee or other parent who interferes with their own children's performances. Dr. Bruce Svare, professor of psychology at the State University of New York at Albany and founder of the National Institute for Sports Reform, says there's a danger to a child's self-esteem when parents send the message to their kids that what they're doing isn't valuable unless they can turn it into something material like a scholarship.
To give some perspective, it's widely cited that there is 70 times as much money available for academic scholarships than for athletic ones. Picking up a paycheck in the National Basketball Association is a 1 in 10,000 chance. The odds of winning an Olympic gold medal are 1 in a million. Then again, few academic scholarship candidates are treated like rock stars in their home towns or are offered million dollar salaries. But parents who go to great lengths to help their kids get a sports scholarship or pro contract may be sacrificing valuable family time, experts say.
"They're living in minivans [driving to and from practice and games] and they don’t spend time together as a family, and that is every bit as important as kids having long practices," says Dr. Charles Yesalis, a Penn State professor of health and human development. "Kids doing sports activities three to five hours a day for five days a week is almost child abuse."
But the kids may not speak up for themselves, according to Yesalis. "When you talk to kids away from their parents, they feign injuries because they're burned out," he says. "They don’t want parents to know because of their financial and time commitment."
Although brawling, abusive parents aren't the norm, at least 15 states have adopted statutes making it a crime to assault sports officials. Community leagues require parents to sign codes of conduct, in addition to developing education programs and forums for parents to address the issues of "sideline rage" and pushing kids too hard.
Gregg Heinzmann, associate director of New Jersey's Rutgers Youth Sports Research Council, acknowledges that it's stressful to see your own child play, especially when you see what you might think is an unfair call. But parents should remember how children see sports. "Its just a blip in the lives of these kids," says Heinzmann. "What's more important is playing on the field under the lights and getting the chance to run the bases and meet new friends."
