Parents In Sports Research Paper

Parents often send their children mix signals by telling them they love them the way they are, they only want them to be happy, and later, on the field they must win. These same parents go so far as to yell or even curse at the officials and even argue with other parents. Parents of today have a growing pride in their children’s accomplishments as if their children’s’ victory belongs to, in part the parents. Sometimes parental pride and investment goes too far, and the child’s victory belongs totally to their parents. This undue stress starts early in life and gets complicated later at a time when the young teen is coping with changes they do not understand.

In “Children Need to Play, Not Compete,” Jessica Statsky argues that younger children should not be involved in overly competitive sports. Statsky wrote that organized competitive sports were to the disadvantage of children both physically and psychologically. In youth athletics, some parents and coaches put their own dreams in front of their children 's’ well-being by stressing winning. Statsky concludes “all organized sports activities” to be remade as a more enjoyable game regardless of each athlete’s ability and athleticism. The author states many issues that kids have when they are forced to play a sport just to win or that they don’t enjoy. Some kids just don 't enjoy sports, but their parents force it on them. Certain organized sports programs promote winning over physical skills and self-esteem. Statsky brings up valid points that early childhood shouldn’t involve intense physical competition, which is associated with the risk of injury to the body and mind.

A point of disagreement among many parents of children who play competitive sports is if the benefits outweigh the risk of injury. It is clear that competitive sports aren’t worth the risks, with high mental costs to send a child where they would be pressured to not let down the team, and when all it takes is a hit to the head to sustain life-changing injuries.

In the article “The Rising Costs of Youth Sports, in Money and Emotion,” When parents spend money on sports they do not realize that they are just paying for the sport itself, not including private lessons and uniforms (Sullivan 1). This means that parents actually end up spending much more money than they thought. According to the article, “Is the Cost of Youth Sports too High,” “The rising costs of youth sports has also raised some concerns that it’s making it harder and harder for children to get involved, even if they want to.” This shows that because families don’t have enough dough, they are spending it on other things instead. Author Paul Sullivan writes that many people say that it is a waste to spend money on sports when you can buy much better things (1). This is important to notice because why waste your money when you can use it on bills, clothes, furniture, and many more useful

many young athletes’ perceptions that their parents expect them to be extraordinary and would criticize them if they failed to deliver. The added pressure from coaches to be perfect can also deter young athletes’ focus on doing what is right or doing what will allow them to succeed and ultimately satisfy their parents and coaches desires (Madigan, Stoeber & Passfield, 2016).

Parents who push their child or children to be the best in sports aren’t the best parents because you’re pushing your child or children into something they like but may end up not liking because of what their doing to them. You’re pushing them because you want them to be better than you were in that sport and you want them to be the best on the field or court or whatever. There are affects on the children whom parents push them in sports and those are: no motivation to play, injuries, and they may end up not liking them or listening to

Atkinson, J. (2014, May 4). How parents are ruining youth sports - The Boston Globe. Retrieved November 26, 2014, from http://www.bostonglobe.com/magazine/2014/05/03/how-parents-are-ruining-youth-sports/vbRln8qYXkrrNFJcsuvNyM/story.html

In the articles, “The Secret Life of Tiger Woods” by Wright Thompson and “Are Parents Ruining Youth Sports? Fewer Kids Play Amid Pressure” by Michael S. Rosenwald, the authors explain what the sacrifices that elite athletes have to make in order to reach that professional level. I think that becoming an “elite athlete” is worth the sacrifices it requires because if you think about it, elite athletes inspire others and make younger people want to try to be an athlete too. Thus, elite athletes make large amounts of money in a year just doing a sport and doing something they like to do, not what they’re forced to do. In the article, Rosenwald says “...Still, active kids are less likely to be obese and are more likely to have higher test scores,

Fewer kids play amid pressure,” shows that children are giving up the fun in sports because the parents want to one-up each other. In the beginning of youth sports, it was just seen as a fun activity for the children, but the parents started getting involved, and the children were shown that this was not a fun sport but a competition that they had to win, no matter what. The article stated this when Amanda Visak explained that, “Amanda Visak, an exercise science professor at George Washington University, recently surveyed nearly 150 children about what they found fun in sports...the kids identified 81 factors contributing to their happiness. Number 48: winning...playing in tournaments, cool uniforms and expensive equipment” (Rosenwald 3). Because of the parents’ competitions, the children think that what is important is winning the game and uniforms, while in reality it should be having fun and trying your best while with your

According to Coaches’ Quarterly, Parents believe that children who specialize in a specific sport will have increased chances towards getting a big-time scholarship. Parents have become more dedicated towards their child receiving athletic scholarships because it saves money, brings “notoriety to the family” and allows a young athlete to fully enjoy their college experience (James White). Parents, most of the time, are the strongest influences in a child’s life, including a child’s involvement within sports. While determined to achieve success for their young athletes, parents often believe that an early start in sports will have a child one step ahead of others (Malina). The story of Tiger Woods has been an inspiration for parents to push their children to specialize in a sport early. Tiger Woods is one of the most successful golfers of all time and has been one of the highest-paid athletes in the world for many years. Tiger Woods has generally been referred to as the “poster child for early specialization”. According to Mark Hecimovich, Sport specialization training can start as early as the age of five (Hecimovich). Tiger Woods has been 100 percent focused on golf since he was two years old. He has won 79 official PGA Tour Events and his PGA Tour record is 11-1 (PGA Tour). Much of Tiger Wood’s success emanated from his father’s passion for golf.

Many parents become passionate and extremely involved in their child’s sports career and because of all this emotion riding on their kid’s performance they become combative. Sadly, these emotions have caused unnecessary tragedies that have changed the outlook of parents and children on these sports. Parents do this with good intentions, but in the end it hurts everyone around them. I believe that their behavior is inappropriate and these parents must also realize themselves that their actions and behavior are unacceptable and have to be addressed

When I tell people I am from Phoenix, Arizona, they look at me funny and ask, “What are you doing in Connecticut?” My response is always the same, “I’m on the UConn women’s basketball team.” Sport has played a large role in my life and has definitely impacted me. My parents were key factors that helped me get to where I am now. Both of my parents were college athletes. My father played basketball at Marquette University in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Before that, he was an all-state basketball player, tennis player and pitched for his high school baseball team. My mother played tennis at Marquette University. She was voted most valuable player all four years and won the prestigious McCahill Award as the university’s top student-athlete her senior year. She came from a tennis family. Her two sisters, her dad, and several uncles played college tennis. Her father, like her, won the McCahill award as Marquette’s top student-athlete. To this day, they are the only father-child combination to win the award. My parents met in line for drug testing when they were both athletes at Marquette. With parents so into athletics, it is not surprising that they decided early on in their relationship that their children would play sports. They decided my brother and I would participate in sports at a young age and knew that sports would teach us valuable life lessons.

These days, there is too much pressure on children who participate in organized sports because of the unnecessary parental involvement they experience. A growing concern amongst those involved in youth sports is that certain aspects of parental involvement become detrimental to the development and experiences of young athletes. Early emphasis on winning, making money, and the disruption of education can exceedingly affect ones desire to further participate in a sport later on in his/her life.

The effects that parent’s involvement can effects a child’s health dramatically. The amount of children playing sports is declining do to their parent’s involvement. The overall concept of this research is that parent involvement in sports has a huge effect not only on their children but on companies and culture of sports. “So most of my advice to parents is not to push harder but to back off, to focus on the enduring and hard-earned benefits of the process rather than the fleeting high of each positive outcome.”(Morgan) Parent need to wake up and realize that their child doesn’t always have talent in the sport and to try something different. Sports aren’t for everyone, there are other things such as dance, singing, band, and academics. Parent

Raising children in today’s society is not for the faint of heart. Raising children has never been easy, but it is especially difficult in youth sports today. Coaches and parents are putting a lot of pressure on our young sons and daughters. The pressure to succeed in sports at