After last weeks lecture and discussion about parents involvement
in youth sports I became very interested in this topic. I think that it is
wonderful for parents to be involved in their childrens’ life especially
bringing encouragement through sports, but is there a limit on how much parents
should be involved? With this day and age many parents are consumed in their
own lives trying to get by to get food on the table so any involvement that
parents can take part in I believe is vital. Sometimes though, it seems that
parents get involved for the wrong reasons. I found more information on this
topic on
childrenhttp://www.safekids.org/assets/docs/ourwork/press-releases/fact-sheet-parental.pdf.
On this website it explained
that “there are more than 2.5 million adults who serve as volunteer coaches,
yet less than 10 percent of these individuals have any formal coaching
education.” So then why are these parents getting involved? There are the
obvious reasons such as getting their children involved and staying active, but
I believe sometimes it goes deeper then this. One study found that “32 percent
of children are motivated to participate in sports by their parents’ desire for
them to join a team.”
Is there such thing as too much involvement?
Kristen Van Well
Kin 332i t/th 9:30am
5 comments:
Personally, I think there is a limit to how much a parent should be involved. But who can determine that limit? In different parts of this country alone, the same sport can be treated differently. For example, there are some people in the midwest who are born and raised to play football and work on a farm. That is just what they do. Whereas on the west coast, people hold football in high school and college to a high standard. But after college it is time to move on with a career that usually involves somthing other than Professional sports. Just something that your post made me think about.
-Taylor Ahuero (Kin 332I T/Th 2pm)
There are obvious lines to how much a parent should be involved, but it honestly depends on the child's view. As bystanders and our experiences, we can easily decide whether a parent is highly involved or not, but ultimately depends on the child and whether their parent's involvement is detrimental or helpful. I believe parents get involved for their love of the sport, trying to get their child involved in physical activity, to have someone watch their kid for a few hours, and trying to make a professional athlete out of their kids. In the end, there is such a thing as too much involvement, but it depends on the harm or aid it may bring.
-Vince Dinh (kin 332I T/TH 2:00)
I wouldn't say that parents get too involved, any parent that can volunteer is a great help, but I would say that parents can get too emotionally involved with their child playing sports. If a parent volunteers to coach their child's team than that is wonderful, however, they have to be focused on teaching those young players the skills of the sport and helping them improve over the season. Parents who want their kid to play so they can live out some dream of sports stardom are signing their child up for the wrong reasons. I have coached youth sports and I have seen those parents that all they care about is their kid playing and winning. So, as long as a parent gets involved for good intentions than there is no such thing as too much involvement.
-Nico Clifton (KIN 332I T/The 2:00)
There is definitely a limit in which parents should be involved. One of the topics we brought up in class was the idea that parents spend more time taking their kids to different sport activities and figuring out which sports for their kids to play than they actually spend with their children. I by all means think sports are great and parents should be involved, but not so involved that they lose sight of why they are putting their children in sports in the first place. Parental support in sports in essential to a child's ego, but support is different than controlling one's child. Just taking them from practice to practice and never asking how practice went or how they felt on the field, is not support. Children need support I agree that it's vital that parents are apart of their children's athletic teams as long as it's for the right reasons.
-Erik Kalfus (KIN 332I T/Th 12-145)
I agree that there is definitely a point at which limitations to parent’s involvement need to be set. When kids are no longer having fun in a sport because their parent is too pushy and creates an environment that the kid isn't okay being in the parent needs to back off. Don't get me wrong its good parents are participating and so many are volunteer coaching but they need to or should be required to meet a guideline that requires some expertise or knowledge on how to coach that sport. Parents are volunteering with good intensions but they need to not over excerpt themselves into their kid’s life and ruin or take the fun out of what the child ultimately wants to do.
Jennifer Porter (kin 332I.S3200)
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