Team of Experts

The following examples shows how parents can get caught up in their children's soccer game and lose focus, dramatically increasing the chances that they will act in ways that do not reflect their values.

Too often, the problem in youth sports is not crazy, out-of-control parents, but the fact that we put children in very competitive situations at too young an age. I often get asked, "When will my child be old enough to compete?" I like to ask parents to re-cast the question as: "When will you be comfortable with allowing your child to be tackled, tripped, yelled at, cheated or left out?" All these things can and will happen in competitive sports. They are part of the game. Your child is old enough when you, as a parent, can handle the stress seeing your child compete puts on you.

There are three things parents can do to make their child's introduction to youth sports a positive experience:(1) look for a program that emphasizes skill development over winning; (2) look for sports activities your child will enjoy; and (3) ask whether your under-12 child needs to participate in competitive sports at all.

It is no easy task to be a parent of a young athlete. Hard enough are the tasks of helping the child learn how to handle the ups and downs of competition. But perhaps most challenging are the demands on your own coping skills - learning how to manage emotions that are repeatedly tested under trying conditions. A common problem is that your love of your child may lead you to behave in ways that ultimately hurt the child

Sports psychologist Shane Murphy identifies six major problems in youth
sports that need to be addressed.

No adult involved in American youth soccer scene deliberately sets out to destroy the love of the game for the players. Rather, they often get caught up in the anxiety of the moment and do not have the skills to handle the pressure and consequently act out or speak inappropriately. When referees, coaches and players are able to stay in the zone of optimal performance, then the atmosphere provides for a high level of enjoyable soccer. The love of the game is strengthened.

By age 12, girls are six times more likely to drop out of sports than boys. Why? One of the reasons, say experts, is that girls simply do not receive as much positive reinforcement about their sports participation as boys. Boys get to see male athletes on televised sports; they can see their photos in newspapers and magazines; and there are plenty of books for boys about male sports heroes. Boys learn at a very young age that it is not only okay to enjoy sports but that their success will be supported by their families and society. Girls see far fewer female athletes on television; coverage of women's sports in newspapers and magazines, while increasing, is far less than that given to men's college and professional sports. There are very few books for girls about female sports heroes that girls can read as they grow up; athletes whose success our daughters will want emulate and see as role models.

The Anything You Can Do... series is the first book series to offer real stories of new heroes to young girls. The premise of the series is to profile a variety of young female athletes, from a variety of ethnic, socio-economic, geographical and family backgrounds who have grown up to achieve excellence in Olympic and professional sports.