Recently I have gone to little league baseball games to watch my fiance umpire. At each game I have sat through, I have been tempted to bring a video camera to tape the parents in the stands. These parents are yelling at their kids while they are up to bat, arguing with the coaches to put in a new pitcher and screaming at the umpire to make better calls. I am not trying to say that excitement is not allowed at the field ever but these little 9 and 10 year old kids are put under so much pressure to perform like professionals. Parents are sitting beside the dug outs near the plate just waiting to give a quick few pointers to their kids on how to bat. At each pitch the parents are yelling at the child on how to adjust and what they should do better next swing. These types of comments are not the same as "Good Eye Johnny", they are remarks with an underlying tone for the kid to do better next time or else. Parents take out almost all of the fun for these kids by pressuring them to perform a certain way. If parents were video-taped and shown the way they behave, would they see that they are yelling at 9 and 10 year old kids to play as if they were 25 years old with 15 years of experience? Would they see the look in their kids eyes that explains how much pressure they are under or are do they really only have an agenda for themselves?
J. Zeeb
005032610
Kin 332 : T/Th 9:30-10:45
3 comments:
There are plenty of examples like the one you brought up about little league baseball, and I've seen a few of them. I see it all the time when swim meets are held for kids 5-18. The usual encouragement after a race is normal for most parents, "nice swim!" or "you really raced so hard, great job!". But more and more often, parents are giving their kids an overload of information before their races, making sure that they swim it perfectly, and if perfection is not reached in the swim, the kids hear about it as soon as they're out of the water. What is even more ridiculous is what happens during the actual event. It's just like little league, kids are trying to perform, and the parents yell their suggestions from the sidelines, parents think that their doing their kids good by screaming at them while their head is submerged and all they can think about is getting the hell out of the water. It's obviously a problem; I was at a meet this past weekend, and as I walked from one end of the pool to the other, I was shocked at the amount of tears I saw, parents and coaches grilling their swimmers for what went wrong. It comes as a source of pride that the only tears shed by my swimmers where those of happiness from how well they did. Hopefully parents will create a new trend in sports, make sports a thing for kids to have fun in, not a thing to make them feel better about themselves as parents.
A. Hoff
006613553
Kin 332 : T/Th 9:30-10:45
I can definitely relate to what your talking about. when i used to to gymnastics, not only would the coaches be yelling at us, but then the girls would have to deal with their parents after that. i do not think it is the parents job to grill their kids after the meet or competition. They should be more encouraging and positive.
K. Beighton
006286109
T. Th. 1230-145
I completely agree! The parents put so much pressure on their children to perform well and they forget to give their children positive reinforcement and encouragement. The parents live vicariously through their children’s athletic participation and quickly forget that sports are supposed to be fun for children. They take it too seriously. I have been in numerous tournaments where fights broke out amongst parent spectators who began arguing about a referee’s bad call or an illegal action of one of the opposing team’s players. Nowadays our American neoliberal society places such high value on material success—if your child is not the highest scoring athlete, or the greatest defensive player on the team then you and your child are seen as failures. The child’s success reflects upon the success of the parent as well. If a child fails at something then the blame falls upon the parent; the child failed because the parent did not do their job properly.
My personal experience was never as bad as others. I had teammates so severely embarrassed by their parents’ outburst during games that the teammate would not tell her parents when or where her tournaments would be. This teammate eventually stopped coming to practices all together. To her, the sport became an obligation. She no longer received any enjoyment from partaking in the sport. She even became a much harder critic on herself and eventually lost most of her self-esteem.
A. Hamilton
KIN 332I Sec3017
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