Abstract
Exercise and sports involvement are highly beneficial for youth. These extracurricular activities have a multitude of physical and emotional benefits and teach both the skills of the sport and social skills. However, parenting an athlete is not an easy task. Today's youth athletes are pushed harder than ever before. With the introduction of the Junior Olympics and travel ball, the stakes have become higher and the pressure more intense for these young athletes. For parents, facilitating sports involvement in their child and being involved but not too involved is a fine line. Pulling from research and applied experience in sports psychology, this chapter outlines methods parents can implement to increase children's motivation to engage in sports, increase their performance, return from setbacks, transition out of sports, and practice self-care. This chapter will discuss the dos and don'ts of parenting children in sports and other performance activities. Parenting athletes and high-level performers presents unique challenges but also presents opportunities to foster a child's growth and development. The authors focus on how parents' roles change as their children progress from youngsters learning basic techniques into skilled athletes. They begin with ways to encourage children to engage in sports and activities and foster intrinsic motivation. They then move on to the delicate balance of allowing children to have autonomy while still teaching commitment and motivating them – without pushing so hard that it contributes to anxiety and burnout. This leads to the parent's level of involvement where the authors discuss what the parent's role is and what it is not. Next, they focus on the child's potential setbacks, such as injury and game loss. Then, they propose strategies to help the child successfully rebound from these setbacks. Discussion will follow on how to support children as they prepare to transition out of sport and preparatory methods that can be used early on to keep an identity that extends beyond athletics. Finally, they wrap up with a personal note to parents on how their own experiences and expectations may be projected onto their children. Parental self-care and awareness will be encouraged, as they are vital to the well-being of the parent, the child, and their relationship.
TopGetting Your Child Involved In Sports
Parental Involvement
Children model their parents' behaviors and use their parents’ responses to situations and circumstances to help decide how they should react to them. For example, babies will look at their parent’s reaction when a stranger comes near. If the parent looks upset or fearful, the child will become upset or fearful. However, if the parent looks calm and happy, the child will be much more receptive to the stranger. It is the same with habits. If the parent puts broccoli on the child’s plate and tells them they have to eat it while they themselves are eating only meat and potatoes, the child gets the message two-fold: this is something that is required but not enjoyable. Simple changes, such as presentation and modeling, can make all the difference in enticing the child to participate in the task (Bandura, 1986). The parent who spoons broccoli onto her plate and the plate of her child’s while saying with a big smile, “Look, we get to have broccoli tonight!” will have a much easier time getting their child to eat it.
Modeling parent behaviors works much the same way in sport engagement (Sohun et al., 2021). Kids naturally want to do what their parents are doing and what their parents get excited about, especially when they are given praise for it as well. Sohun and colleagues found that three parental behaviors led to increased sports participation by their children: encouraging their children to participate, facilitating their participation, and getting involved in their children’s sports with them (Sohun et al., 2021). Children’s engagement in sports and parental support of this engagement has been found to lead to healthier outcomes for the parent and child and an increase in the perception of the child-parent relationship (Knoester & Fields, 2019).
Extrinsic Rewards
Initial efforts to entice a child to play in sport may include many external rewards. Praising the child, snacks after games, and participation awards contribute to the child creating a positive association with the sport and an initial motivation to participate in the sport. The hope is that, eventually, the child will participate in the sport simply because they enjoy it. That is, the experience will become autotelic, and the child will be intrinsically motivated to participate. But this cannot be expected before the child knows how to play the sport, as they will not yet be able to experience feelings of competency or autonomy (Frederick & Ryan, 1995). In addition, if they do not have friends on the team, or it is an individual sport, a lack of “relatedness” could make it difficult to become intrinsically motivated (Deci & Ryan, 1985). Thus, the initial presentation of external rewards can motivate the child to engage in the sport long enough to develop feelings of competency as they gain skill, autonomy as they are skilled enough to make performance decisions, and relatedness as they befriend their teammates, which results in the development of intrinsic motivation. At this point, extrinsic rewards are no longer required. The child will be motivated to play simply because they enjoy it.
Key Terms in this Chapter
Resiliency: The ability to act in a flexible and adaptive manner when faced with adversity.
Outcome Goals: Goals that are associated with the completion of a performance, such as winning a game.
Process Goals: Goals that are associated with a process that are a component of a performance, such as perfecting a particular golf swing.
Intrinsic Motivation: Desire to participate in an activity because of an internal reward such as task enjoyment and increased feelings of competence.
Ego Orientation: Focus on a standard held by others or in comparison to others.
Extrinsic Motivation: Desire to participate in an activity because of an external reward such as money or food.
Mastery Orientation: Focus on a standard held by self and in comparison to one’s own previous performance.
Autotelic: Enjoyable to participate in and experience, not needing to have additional rewards.