connect! - College of Education & Human Development - University ...

OUT OF THELAB
INTO THE
WORLD
A sporting chance
BY J. TROUT LOWEN | EMBARRASSED BY HER
FATHER’S BEHAVIOR, a young girl breaks down crying on
the pitcher’s mound. A peewee flag football coach punches a 16year-old
referee during a game. A father pulls a gun on a football
coach in an argument over his second-grader’s playing time.
Adults’ bad behavior at youth sports events has become a
hot topic in the media, prompting some sports organizations to
impose mandatory ethics classes for parents or “silent sidelines.”
How do youth really want parents to behave, though?
Jens Omli, a doctoral candidate in sport psychology and a
research associate at the Tucker Center for Research on Girls
and Women in Sport, put that question to young athletes ages
3 to 14 as part of his Kids Speak research project. He thinks
the answer could help athletes, coaches, and parents both on
and off the field.
“We have a number of different programs and ways to
change parent behavior,” Omli explains, “but no research had
previously been conducted on how children want [parents] to
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behave, so we don’t really know what we wanted them
to change to.”
Omli interviewed 73 attendees of a beginners’ summer
tennis camp in Washington, all of whom had previous sports
experience. The campers played an average of 3.8 sports
each; soccer was the most common, followed by baseball
and swimming.
What the campers said they want might surprise some
parents: quiet attentiveness. Children want parents to pay
attention but to keep quiet unless somebody scores, then
cheer, and then become silent again. What kids don’t want is
their parents coaching from the sidelines, or yelling at them,
at the coach, or at the referee.
Even positive comments can be distracting or embarrassing,
kids say. Embarrassing enough—especially for young teens—
that they may want to drop out of a sport altogether.
Omli also quizzed youth about coaches, asking them to
describe their best and worst coach. Their responses were