Cheering, Not Jeering: Guidelines for Positive Youth Sport Parenting

Darren C. Treasure, Ph.D.
Director, AIA Academy

Parents are the best resource youth sport has to ensure an optimal experience for the participants.  The goal of youth sport is to help your child learn important lessons for life, e.g., character development, social skills, responsibility, teamwork, a healthy life-style, and develop a love and life-long commitment to a physically active lifestyle.  

The list of commitments that follow are designed to help you optimize your child’s experience and also to enhance your relationship with your child.

Commit to it being your child’s experience

The single most important responsibility you have as a youth sport parent is to recognize that this is your child’s experience.  Let your child choose whether he/she wants to play and ensure that he/she understands that your love and affection are in no way dependent on his/her performance or athletic accomplishments.  If your child begins to believe that this is your experience and that your love is contingent on his/her performance, youth sport will become a great source of stress.  In a worst-case scenario, this reverse dependency trap can create long lasting friction between a parent and a child.

Commit to sharing your son or daughter

Children get very confused when a parent coaches from the bleachers.  Be supportive of the coach and allow him/her to guide your child’s youth sport experience.  This does not mean being silent in the bleachers.  In fact, children want you to be at their practices and games and want you to cheer for them … and their opponents!  Yes, research has shown that young athletes want their parents to appreciate good play even if it by an opponent.

Commit to accepting your child’s disappointments and triumphs

Put your child’s successes and failures into perspective.  If you catch yourself overreacting to your child’s performances, take a step back and ask yourself, “What is the purpose of the activity?”  It is very easy to become very competitive and involved in your child’s performances.  It is much more difficult, but far more important, to remember that win or lose this is your child, not a future superstar athlete.  Your child’s successes and failures provide wonderful teachable moments to help develop valuable life-skills and for your child to learn life lessons.

Commit to Teaching, Enforcing, Advocating, and Modeling desired behaviors

Although it is very important to teach, enforce, and advocate the behaviors you would like your child to adopt, if you do not model these behaviors, your child will see right through you.  One of the biggest criticisms from children concerns parental behavior in regard to officials.  Younger children will automatically respect children as they respect older individuals.  If, however, you do not model good sportsmanship your child will very quickly change his behavior, particularly when they move into adolescence.

Commit to letting your child make his or her own decisions

Children learn most effectively when they are in a safe environment that allows them to make decisions and experience both success and failure.  As a parent, it is important that you provide encouragement to your child, but it is also vital that you let your child make his own choices whether you agree or disagree.  Remember, the ultimate goal is to help your child develop into a good citizen by creating an optimal environment, not by managing his life.

Communicating effectively with your child’s coach

It is also very important that you communicate with your child’s coach.  This is not only a right for you as a parent, but also a responsibility that will enhance your child’s youth sport experience.  Remember that communication is a two-way street.  This means that you should respect the coach in word and action, and that the coach should listen to your genuine concerns.  One of the most important things to consider when communicating with your child’s coach is the place and time you choose.   Here are some suggestions on how to improve your relationship with your child’s coach:

1. Lend a hand when a coach asks for help.
   
2. Be positive in your comments to coaches of either team.
   
3. Let the coach, coach.
   
4. When appropriate, inform your coach of any issues your child is experiencing that may affect his behavior at practice or in games.
   
5. Teach, enforce, advocate and model the behaviors your coach is trying to instill in your child.