How our own sports history shows up in our parenting, and why a little self-reflection helps our kids enjoy the game.
How do we stay ambitious for our kids while staying calm? When do we push, and when do we sit back?
Sports psychologists seem to agree that to get good outcomes in youth sports, we should:
- encourage independence
- focus on enjoyment
- reflect on our own motivations
- encourage open communication
I want to talk about number 3.
Becoming more aware of how my own athletic background shows up in my parenting has helped me.
A bit of oversharing: I grew up doing competitive show-jumping on horseback. When I landed at a boys’ school in Toronto, team sports were how athletic talent was measured (mostly hockey; it was Canada). My classmates and teachers found my riding success odd. I was a decent defensive player in a few sports and found some success in swimming in my junior year. But it wasn’t until graduate school that I really dug into a team sport: ultimate. I got decent, loved it, and spent almost every free minute playing for six years, at the college and club levels. After ultimate, I stayed active with distance running.
Back in middle school, I could have approached things differently. I could have focused, trained and built my puck or ball skills. Instead, I often felt bitter. More experienced kids gave blunt feedback: you suck. The coaching didn’t help. Instead of developing talent where they found it, many coaches piled on. I take responsibility for my own work ethic, but I left high school believing individual sports were the only place I could succeed. It was a lousy feeling.
I carry that feeling into my parenting today, despite my success in ultimate. I project my wish to have been good at team sports in middle and high school onto my kids’ performance now. That gets in the way.
By projection, I mean the tendency to unconsciously pass our unfulfilled ambitions on to someone else.
This is well documented in youth sports. A 2013 study by Brummelman and colleagues has an uncannily precise title: “My Child Redeems My Broken Dreams: On Parents Transferring Their Unfulfilled Ambitions onto Their Child.” Another study, by Dorsch and colleagues (2009), shows that youth sports work both ways: parents shape their kids’ experiences, and those experiences reshape the parents too.
There’s much more research, but I’ll end with one more study and a reading tip. Lisinskiene and Lochbaum (2019) found that outcomes improve when we focus not only on the athlete, but on the relationship between athlete and parent. A strong bond can support growth, but unhealthy attachment can add pressure, take away enjoyment and push kids out of the sport.
In short: reflect on your own motivations.
One of the best resources I’ve found on all this is Dan Blank’s Happy Feet: How to Be a Gold Star Soccer Parent (Soccer Poet LLC, 2014). If you know me, you’ve probably heard me recommend it.
Blank starts with a sobering statistic: 75% of young people quit team sports by age 13, and one of the top reasons they give is that their parents’ behavior makes sports unpleasant.
We can all do better with a little quiet self-reflection before we open our mouths on the car ride home.