Comments on: How Parents Are Hurting Their Child Athletes

By: Allie

Allie — Mon, 10 May 2010 18:30:22 +0000

Some parents can’t handle their child being discussed as a team member. My daughter was playing in a lacrosse game when my husband started discussing with me the last play made by another girl on the team that missed a shot. He was discussing to me how it could have been played differently. The father overheard our conversation and accused my husband of personally critisizing his daughter and how we thought only our daughter was perfect. Then his wife chimed in and lectured us on how you never discuss other people’s children. They were screaming and getting so emotional, we were appauled at how “juvenille” they sounded. We are still watching a spectator sport and like to discuss it. if we are sitting in the stands should we whisper to eachother? We never called out the child’s name (nor did we know it). When did commenting on plays become taboo?

By: James

James — Mon, 10 May 2010 17:14:47 +0000

Good topic with good responses! As an educator, I spent the majority of my 20+ years coaching (football, basketball, baseball). What I began seeing in the early 90′s was a rash of middle and high school kids “specializing” in one sport and a proliferation of personal instructors. Many of these kids were good all-around athletes who droppped other sports that they were not only good at, but also seemed to enjoy playing in defference of one sport (usually baseball among the males). Sadly, most of these kids usually got sick of the sport after 3-4 intense years (invloving year round instruction and practice) and stopped participating. Then there were those who weren’t as good as the personal instructor or the time spent led them to believe and they became disillusioned when the team didn’t revolve around them and/or the college offer they expected wasn’t forthcoming. This isn’t a slam on the personal instructors, as I know several that are really good professionals; rather, it is a finger pointed squarely at the parents who, as was mentioned above, are living vicariously through their children’s athletic “careers!”

A related phenomenon I have seen far too much of is a parental jealously that can develop when their child is not the star the parent expects them to be. It usually turns into a wild display of accusations directed at the coach, who is unfair and doesn’t give the child a fair shake and other parents/players who are obviously “kissing-up” to get their children an advantage. Nobody ever wins in a situation like this and the biggest loser is always the child of jealous parent. Lost is the opportunity to work smarter and harder to get better and to develop a “team first” mentality that is vital to success both in the particular sport and, usually, in a job/career or social setting. Whatever happened to “there’s no ‘I’ in team?”

Sports are competitive and there are great individual and team lessons to be learned with participation. They are also fun, for the most part. It is very sad when the adults rob the fun from them.

By: Vava

Vava — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 14:36:04 +0000

Great post, and good topic! I am also a big sports fan, though like you it seems that age brings with it a lessening of this obsession.

As far as parenting and sports goes, and having two boys one of which is a HIGE baseball fan and a decently talented player making all the top teams in his age group I am very concerned with the whole too much pressure thing.

My approach, for what it’s worth, is always to reinforce to him that the process is much more important than the end result. I tell my kids my story to help them understand: I was a competitive swimmer for many years, and swimming ruled my life. My goals were lofty, I wanted to make the Olympic team. I fell well short of that goal, but found a great deal of satisfaction in the process. I know that I trained just as hard, and was just as dedicated to the sport as any Olympic athlete. I knew this because I had the opportunity to train with a few and saw that they didn’t put in any more effort that I did, and in some cases they actually didn’t put in nearly as much. In the end I cannot have any regrets because I know that I maximized my talent, and that is all I can ever ask of my boys in whatever they pursue. If it’s worth doing, do it as best as you can and learn from your mistakes. Equally, balance is very imortant and I totally agree with you when it comes to letting kids just “play”, no matter what form that takes. As soon as my little guy stops dragging ME out the door to get to practices and games I will know that the balance is out of whack.

That perspective also gives me the background to coach and cheer on all of the kids that I interact with (including those on the other team) and leave the pressure of winning and such nonsense alone. It also gives me the confidence to stand up to parents who are not as accomodating to these principles – they simply have no counter argument and know it.