In the United States, approximately 60 million children and adolescents participate in sports. Youth sports continue to grow rapidly with clubs related to the sports opening. Parents continue to put their children in youth sports younger and younger in attempts to develop them as athletes from a young age, but who truly pays the price?
In America, it is common for parents to begin to put their kids into recreational sports between the ages of three to six. Most commonly, kids do sports like soccer, baseball/ T-ball, dance, or gymnastics. A study from the National Library of Medicine states that, “Parents highly value child growth and development benefits such as discipline, respect, responsibility and handling pressure.” These are motivators that drive parents to sign their children up for youth sports at a young age.
The article also said that another common motivator for parents signing their children up for sports is the hope that by the time the child is old enough, they have developed skill enough to potentially obtain college scholarships. Parents that hope their children will eventually get college scholarships become passionate about their child’s growth in the sport over the years. This leads many families to spend thousands of dollars on sports. Many spend over $1,500 on sports annually, however, this often reaches $3,000 to $5,000 in most cases for any kind of club or competitive sport. This amount does not even entail travel, registration fees, and private lessons that many participate in.
Now, there is an issue that in youth sports that parents have become more unruly than children. In an article from ESPN, it discusses and studies the harassment and abuse put on youth coaches from parents. The article says, “Respondents to the SafeSport survey shared a similar sentiment, saying that parents had negative attitudes, were unable to hold their children accountable and showed abusive behavior.” Many youth coaches report parents second-guessing their coaching abilities, verbal harassment, and inability to hold their children accountable has led to a hostile and toxic team environment. However, many parents also report that coaches behave in negative ways or treat their children poorly and this causes the complaints.
The challenges of managing unruly parents is the one of the largest reasons that coaches have considered leaving or quitting their coaching careers. More than 45% of coaches say that abusive parents are what has driven them out of coaching due to burnout. 69% say that they experience toxic environments fueled by parents. For these coaches, the hassles outweigh the joy of the job to a point they are unmotivated to coach any longer.
Many people in America think that youth sports in America have fueled toxic environments for all involved, but it is an inescapable cycle. The question lies in wondering if these parents are just “passionate” or “toxic.” What do you think?
