Parent's Role

Women, particularly the mothers who volunteer, are often the backbone of what makes a youth sports team work smoothly.
Unfortunately, as with dads, when it comes to their own child's sports team, a mom's greatest strengths can become weaknesses that can cause problems for her child and his/her coach. 

It seems to be popular these days to blame the parents for their out-of-control behavior at youth sports events. There is probably no way to completely eliminate the emotional pressure a parent feels when they are attending their child's athletic event (pressure that naturally increases as the child moves up the competitive ladder), but are parents who act out a symptom of what is wrong with youth sports or the disease itself?

During the San Francisco X Games, MomsTeam talked to moms of some of the top athletes, who shared their experiences in the world of "extreme" sports and advice on what other parents should know to help them decide if these sports are right for their child.

To create the best possible environment for youth sports requires cooperation and coordination between parents, coaches, and game officials that can only be achieved through education.

Each summer, 12-year-old boys are thrust into the spotlight of the Little League World Series. It is a great thrill for most of them to be on TV and have the whole country watch them compete play against the best young baseball players in the world for what is truly a world championship.

Parents can help young athletes overcome anxiety and have more fun playing sports, including a technique called performance exhaling.

In the fall of 2000, 2700 parents went through our first four-hour training program. Not all parents were happy to be there at the beginning, but the vast majority left the program better educated and determined to make the football sideline a happier, more enjoyable and healthier place to be. Parents For Youth Sports 2000 is already having a positive impact on sideline behavior.

El Paso, Texas is a multi-cultural city of 700,000 across the Rio Grande River from Juarez, Mexico. Like most communities across the United States, large and small, El Paso has experienced problems in youth sports, including out-of-control parents. In 1999, youth sports violence in El Paso escalated. At city-sponsored football games, incidents of violence included parents...