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The Home Team: Parental Support and Youth Sports

Family support is an essential component to the positive experience of any young athlete. Parents play a tremendous role in helping their children find success and reach their potential in sports. So when does parental support turn into obsession? Why do parents get so wrapped up in their children's performance?

Take a minute to think back on your own childhood experiences with sports. If they were anything like mine, you might recall pick-up soccer games at school during recess and kickball or whiffle ball games in the court down the street on the weekends. You might also recall that many of those experiences did not include adult supervision or interaction. We created our own teams, we moved players around to even out the "good"players to make it a more exciting game, and we shared the duties of refereeing with issues being quickly resolved so we could get back to playing the game.

The sport experiences of your children are much different than what you experienced growing up. This past decade has seen the professionalization of youth sports. There has been a tremendous increase in opportunities for children to participate in sport; from school teams, to club teams and travel teams - suddenly it feels like your child has a full time job! With all of those increased opportunities, we have also seen an increase in the percentage of adult involvement in youth sports. It used to be that kids would try to get their parents to come and watch a game, but now they are trying to get them to not come and watch every practice!

It's easy for people to chalk up the obsession to parents wanting to live vicariously through their kids. Is it true that some parents are trying to live vicariously through their children's sport performance? Yes. But it is also true that parents just want to give their kids every opportunity to be successful in their endeavors. However, doing this they can also unknowingly push their kids into early "retirement"through overuse injuries or burnout before they ever get the chance to reach their potential in sport.

Unfortunately, there are parents out there with questionable motives, but for every parent that sees their child in terms of potential fame and dollar signs there is another that is trying to support their kid and just making honest mistakes along the way. You wouldn't be human if you didn't.

Kids need to know that mistakes are a part of the learning process and not an attack on their self-worth or innate ability. Kids often get mixed messages when coaches or parents tell them it's OK to make mistakes and then reprimand them when they do. Your reactions to their mistakes and what you say after a "good"or "bad" performance can have a lasting impact and influence their confidence and motivation moving forward. Your job is to help them maintain their self-worth in the face of errors and slumps, and give them the tools to persevere and experience what it is like to work hard on a skill and see their performance improve. Remind your children that they can't learn to walk until they learn to crawl. Mistakes are a valuable source of feedback that can only be learned from if your kids feel it is truly OK to make them.

Bad calls and bad coaching decisions are not something that is happening to your child, they are a part of the package that comes with playing sports. Sometimes parents will react based on their emotions when they perceive the interactions between their child and the coach or the referee as something that is happening against their child. If you always "rescue" them from these situations, they will always look to you to be rescued. There is a time and a place to communicate with a coach or a referee and unless there is a threat of physical harm towards your child, that time is not during a game. Great lessons can be learned from these experiences. You can help your child learn how to deal with disappointment, maintain motivation, let go of the past and learn to re-focus. If you react based on these emotions and yell at the ref or the coach, you start to chip away at your child's motivation to play. Help them learn to be resilient and let go of things that are not in their control.

The rule for this topic is state the obvious: "Do you know that I love you no matter how you perform on the field?" Even if you know the response will be an exasperated, "Duh Mom", or "I know Dad!" that doesn't mean that it doesn't need to be said. The perceptions of your actions might be interpreted by your child as love conditional on the outcome of their performance. Have a conversation with your kids about the impact you have on them when it comes to sports.

• Do you feel like I support you?
• Is there anything I do at practice or a game that bothers you?
• What's one thing you wish I would do more of?
• What's one thing you wish I would do less of?

Ask your child these questions and truly listen to their responses. You'd be surprised to hear that sometimes the things you do that you think are supportive are a source of stress for your child. If you haven't had a conversation like this with your child before, it may feel awkward. If you feel like that may be the case, you can have them write out their answers first and then pick a time to talk about what they wrote. Having this dialogue with your child will help you to begin playing on the same team rather than in opposition.

When you have a child participating in organized sport, you are also along for the ride. Parents and families can burnout on sports as well. The more your kids enjoy the experience, the more you will too. Parents want their children to learn valuable life skills through their participation in sport and your children don't learn those lessons on their own. Instead of hoping that they come away from the experience with lessons learned regarding the value of teamwork, communication, and perseverance, you can help your child learn those lessons with the conversations you have with them and the unconditional support you give. It's time to get on the "home team"and help your children excel in sport.

Carrie Cheadle is a Sport & Exercise Mental Skills Coach and has a private practice based in Northern California coaching teams and athletes on mental skills training and peak performance. You can sign up for her free quarterly e-newsletter "Game ON!"at www.carriecheadle.com.

Carrie will be presenting Sport Parenting: How to Support Your Kid in Sport, on Wednesday, February 24, 2010 from 7-8pm at Fleet Feet Sports.

RSVP for this free clinic at RSVP@FleetFeetSantaRosa.com