When our children enter the world of youth sports, none of us is prepared for what lies ahead. Basically, most of us start from ground zero and feel our way along an uncertain path, depending upon common sense to help us provide support to our kids.Essentially, all parents have common objectives. We want to be recognised as good parents; we want to relax and enjoy ourselves while sharing sports experiences with our kids; we want them to learn valuable life lessons by participating in sports; we want sport to be a refreshing diversion from the normal routine of everyday life; we want sports to provide our kids and the entire family with a sense of community; and finally we would all like to believe that through our actions we have left the world of sports a better place than we found it. Whether or not we are able to clearly articulate these goals, they all eventually reside somewhere within us as private hopes and dreams for our children.
Each one of us assumes the role of sports parent with different experiences of sports and life. However, we all move through a development process as sports mentors to our children, though some develop faster than others. But at the basic level we all aspire to satisfy our need for recognition. If we dont believe that others regard us as competent sports parents, it is difficult to move beyond and focus upon ourselves. If we lack confidence that our kids will be successful in sports and games arenas, it will be difficult for us to get beyond that level of concern.
And if we are not able to control our emotions and take pleasure in sports experiences with our kids, it will be difficult to get out of ourselves and enable our children to enjoy sports. So the first challenge for parents is to get beyond being tied up in satisfying our own needs. Until we have learned to satisfy our own needs for recognition as sports parents, it is unlikely we will succeed in focusing upon what our kids want to get out of sports or what they need to get out of sports.
Once we have reached the level of being able to go beyond ourselves, we are freed up to consider what is in the best interest of our kids. Then we can turn our attention to how sports and games can be used to teach our kids life skills that will assist them throughout their lives. Also, we will be able to focus upon how our childrens minds can be expanded so they will be open to experiencing sports in ways that inspire, educate, and unite them with their teammates and opponents on playing fields and stadiums.
Only after we have developed the capacity to attend to our childrens welfare, rather than our own, after the satisfaction of their needs takes precedence over our own, will we be able to turn our attention to satisfying the needs of the sports groups to which our kids belong. It takes considerable self-confidence and success in supporting our own children before it becomes easy for us to transfer some of our energy to strengthening their play groups. To be able to progress to this level of maturity as a sports parent requires substantial investment in satisfying our own needs and the needs of our kids.
The final stage in the developmental process for sports parents is to support initiatives to make the world of sports a better place for children, and make investments beyond ourselves and our kids in the larger cause of sports development. This will offer the opportunity to contribute and, perhaps, sense that we are living on in the lives of future generations of families engaged in sports activities.
This way of thinking about the process of becoming a more mature sports parent offers us a better way of understanding our feelings and behaviour. It gives us the opportunity to better understand the potential that sports holds for us, our families and communities. It encourages us to establish realistic goals for ourselves as we grow in our role as sports parents. And it reminds us of our responsibilities to our kids, family, and communities. It is, I suggest, a framework to develop a sports parenting role that is useful, in every sense of the word.
Obviously, it is necessary to fully master one level of development before proceeding to the next. It is important, however, to appreciate that until we deal with the more basic requirements of becoming mature sports parents, we will struggle with accomplishing higher-level tasks. For example, until we have learned how to get out of ourselves it will be more difficult for us to adequately attend to the needs of our kids.
And until we learn to address the needs of our children, it will be more difficult for us to invest fully in creating mutually supportive sports communities. This does not mean that until we have gotten our own act together we will be unable to make contributions to our children and their sports communities which are essential for their wholesome development and of the societies in which they will live. It only means that we need to make conscious efforts to be free from ourselves to attend to the needs of our children and wider communities.
(Dr. George A. Selleck is a San Francisco-based advisor to EduSports, Bangalore)
