3 Steps Toward Perfect Sports Parenting

1. Determine Motivation

I’ve asked hundreds of sports parents, “Why do you have your kids involved in youth sports?”

Their answers vary:

• “I love sports, and I think my kid will too.”
• “Sports teach life lessons.”
• “I want them to learn how to work hard and/or to compete.”
• “My kid loves sports.”

Likely, a complete picture of why people get their kids involved with anything includes a bit of each of the above answers.

Motivation is key to achievement in any child’s development, the thing is, the motivation that matters most is not the parents’ motivation.

Are the choices being made about the parent or the child? Adults need to take an intentional and introspective look at why they do what they do, so they can take the next critical step to becoming the perfect sports parent.

2. Abandon Ego

Kids need people to feed, transport and clothe them. For some athletes, they need parents to fill in as coaches, managers or tournament directors. Let’s face it, youth sports, or any childhood activity, does not exist without adults taking administrative or organizational roles. Children need to know their parents support them, so attendance and involvement matter, but if too much of it is about the adult, there is a problem.

Adults should ask: Does my child think this is as important as I do? How do I feel when my child or their team doesn’t do well? How quickly do I want to jump in to change things because I don’t like how things make ME feel?

To arrive at perfect sport parent status, however, adults need to take themselves and their egos out of the equation.

3. Guide with Curiosity Instead of Control

If you have children, you have been afforded the awesome gift of parenting another human through childhood. It brings so many things, but the grandest of all is a responsibility to help that human child develop bravely, wholly, and positively into the best possible version they can be.

Be curious with them to see how they want their story to unfold. Choose to hand over the reins to them as soon as you can. In order to do that you need to identify where autonomy is possible so control can be handed to the child.

Asking questions like:

What is your favorite thing about ______? (fill in the blank with the sport or activity)

What do you wish you could change about __________?

Are there things you would like to try? Is there something new you would like to learn?

Then, instead of simply paying lip service to these questions, let them see that you have heard them. Pursue the new, change the changeable, and celebrate the parts they love most.

Kids will remain curious and invested in their lives when they learn that the adults around them believe their pursuit is worthy. And you, curious sports parent, will be that much closer to achieving sports parenting perfection.