Sports Parents and the Effect on Their Children

We have all seen it all too often. That “A” player on the team has those laser guided missiles for parents. They know everything about the sport their child and in most cases the competition. Their vision is to see their child rise to the lofty levels of “D One”, or more commonly known as Division One College ranks. Oh yes, and this while their child is still in K-6 of course. No investment in their athletic future is too high. Personal trainer for young Mikey at all of age 7? You bet, he still needs to learn how to score with the left hand. Forget the fact that the basketball size and height of the rim could be problematic to Mikey’s physical capabilities, alas a trainer will fix that.
Then we venture into the athletic dome or for this tale the Gym. Inside the dome is where we really see it all. Live and it full color. Parents screaming for their child and cursing every bad call by the officials. Here’s another funny note, in every youth sport there is the constant need for the volunteer coach. I haven’t found the pay for coach level yet in the recreational leagues. We’ll leave that for a later novel. So here we are with the game in-hand and the poor coach trying to keep everyone happy by playing fair with their time on the court and then it happens. The A Player parent, who didn’t volunteer to coach their child takes over. With their rage in full stride they aggressively call out to the “team” to step it up and begin the quest to over take their teams coach by out yelling him or her from the bleachers. All this adds up to is chaos.
I always thought it would be fun to take all those video/dvd recorders and turn them back on the bleachers. Make a year end party video for all to see. Now that would be one pizza party worth the wait. You see, the one common thread in all this is that most parents have no idea what the sound like. They have no ill intentions in most cases either. But the negative effect this has on their children and the other players is quite real. One thing I must say about the individual sports is they are quite different on tolerance. I would give youth soccer an A for not allowing the sidelines to manage the pitch. Baseball would get an F and quite frankly I think it’s by design. Basketball is mixed. Where you have a strong League director its well managed and combined with good officials who must also make sure that they are not bigger than the game you have a great potential.
The real damage is not to the game, although it too suffers. The sad report here is the impact our children have when a parent becomes larger than the game itself weekend after weekend. All too often a child just drops out of their quest for a sports role only because the embarrassment or abuse is just not worth it anymore. Lots of downside to this when you consider most children tend to get in trouble when too much idle time is available. Sports is a wonderful way to keep this from happening.
I guess at the end of the day we as parents have to take stock. We have to look in the mirror and take a closer view of our desires personally versus our children’s enjoyment for their sport of choice. Always an interesting day at the youth games.