Parents' Perceptions of Child-to-Parent Socialization in Organized Youth Sport

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to enhance understanding of how parents are socialized by their children's organized youth sport participation. Five semistructured focus groups were conducted with youth sport parents (N = 26) and analyzed using qualitative methods based on Strauss and Corbin (1998). Sixty-three underlying themes reflected parents' perceived socialization experiences resulting from their children's organized youth sport participation. Each theme represented 1 of 11 subcategories of parental change, which were subsumed within four broad categories of parent sport socialization (behavior, cognition, affect, relationships). Each category of parental change was interconnected with the other three categories. Moreover, six potential moderators of parent sport socialization were documented, namely, child age, parent past sport experience, parent and child gender, child temperament, community sport context, and type of sport setting (individual or team). Together, these findings enhance understanding of parent sport socialization processes and outcomes, thus opening avenues for future research on parents in the youth sport setting.

A phenomenological interpretation of the parent-child relationship in elite youth football.

“…Parents' recognition and 668 understanding of their child's needs and their capacity to adapt to meet these has previously 669 been reported (e.g. Dorsch et al, 2009;, but is often overshadowed within wider 670 discussions focusing on the determinants of parents' behaviours and/or associated child 671 effects. For example, parents' empathy with their child has been framed as a contributory 672 factor to parents' emotional reactions at competitions, and therefore, as a potential area for 673 development (Holt et al, 2008;Knight & Holt, 2013).…”

Parental involvement in the lives of intercollegiate athletes

“…Therefore, it was beneficial to obtain a qualitative comprehensive account about this subject from athletes (Dorsch, Smith, & McDonough, 2009). A qualitative, case study method was employed to obtain these accounts and help to uncover information about parental involvement and overinvolvement (Hancock & Algozzine, 2011;Stake, 1995).…”

Developing features of sport parenting expertise: an investigation and intervention

“…First, Grolnick and colleagues (2002) found that as parents become more ego-involved in their child's activities, they naturally find supporting children's perceptions of autonomy and relatedness more challenging (Grolnick, Gurland, DeCourcey, & Jacob, 2002). This finding has been supported in sport where researchers have reported more intense parent emotions as involvement in children's sport increases (e.g., Clarke & Harwood, 2014;Dorsch et al, 2009). Also, susceptibility to sport-parenting challenges is linked to a parent's own learning history in performance domains .…”

“…This research has consistently found sport-parenting to be a highly emotional experience, with parents describing a range of emotions including disappointment, worry, embarrassment, anger, and helplessness (e.g., Dorsch, Smith, & McDonough, 2009;Harwood & Knight, 2009a;2009b;Knight & Holt, 2013a). When Wiersma and Fifer (2008) explored 55 youth sport parents' experiences, the authors identified four key categories of parent experience: a) joys, b) challenges, c) factors that explain parent behaviour, and d) adult responsibility.…”

“…Additionally, personal factors have been found to contribute to the youth sport-parenting experience. For example, as parents become more involved in their child's sport, which is often the case when children begin to compete more seriously due to the increased necessity to provide logistical and emotional support, emotions associated with sport observation tend to be amplified (Clarke & Harwood, 2014;Dorsch et al, 2009). Dunn and colleagues (2016) also found that as families increase financial investment related to sport, children experience more parental pressure and less sport enjoyment (Dunn, Dorsch, King, & Rothlisberger, 2016).…”