Performance Parenting

I believe we all want to be good parents. We encourage our children's participation in sports because we believe they (and us) benefit through their involvement in the group experience. We want to believe that our attendance and support helps our children play better on the field. Most of us want what is best for our children on the athletic field. We want a positive environment that teaches the values of positive sportsmanship.

The stories of parents acting out on the sidelines are all too familiar. The problems range from parents yelling at parents, parents verbally abusing referees, to incidents of physical violence between adults. The unfortunate part of this behavior is that not only does it teach children that abuse and violence are ways to solve disagreements, but it constitutes a form of emotional abuse.

Parents and officials never seem to be on the same page. There always seems to be some tension between them. It often seems to parents that the person officiating must be seeing a different game than they are. Every call seems to go against their child's team. But it doesn't have to be that way.

his is one challenge from which, I believe, we should not back down if we hope to change how parents behave on the youth sports sidelines. The need for a change in parent behavior is well documented. Simply put, the number of times when parents act inappropriately towards officials, players, coaches and other parents is unacceptably high. Most agree that something must be done, but are unsure whether they want to put in the effort required to change the status quo.

As parents we have a lot to learn about the youth sports our children play. Most of us have not played the game with age appropriate rules and therefore we are learning on the job what our children are doing on the field. Some rules are new to us and, of course, have little in common with the rules we see professional athletes use while we watch them on television.

Each summer, 12-year-old boys are thrust into the spotlight of the Little League World Series. It is a great thrill for most of them to be on TV and have the whole country watch them compete play against the best young baseball players in the world for what is truly a world championship.

The teams will share one sideline; their parents stand on the opposite sideline. Instead of practicing good sportsmanship by exchanging friendly greetings, each group of parents stakes out "their" own turf on the sideline and eyes the other with suspicion and distrust. After all, they are "the enemy"...

To create the best possible environment for youth sports requires cooperation and coordination between parents, coaches, and game officials that can only be achieved through education.

It is very disappointing not to be chosen for the team for which your child has tried out. Whether your child has been cut from a school, club or league team, it is just plain painful not to be selected.

Parents face the danger of being caught in the intensity web even in individual sports such as golf and tennis. The problem is not so much being on the sidelines during competition but the way they interact with their child leading up to the beginning of a major tournament.