Are Overbearing Sports Parents Harmful?

As long as organized youth sports have been around, there’s been an ongoing conversation about how parents influence involvement in youth sports. Sports parenting—the role we play and the impact we have on our young athletes—is certainly something we need to talk about, especially when you consider that 70% of kids drop out of youth sports by 13. 

In fact, most quit by age 11, such an unfortunate young age to give up on sports. 

As parents, we want our children to succeed, but perhaps haven’t thought through a gameplan of how to support them. So we do our best to be supportive, but along the way, the dynamic can change and supportive behavior can give way to overbearing. It happens over time. At virtually every youth sports event, examples of negative parental involvement in sport are all around. Some parents erupt at referees or coaches, while others hyper-fixate on their own child’s performance.

But for every outburst you see, there’s a whole lot of overbearing parent behavior you don’t see. It can happen at home, in the car, everywhere. It can happen over time, building more and more pressure. The thing is, these parents almost certainly started with positive intentions.

To really make an impact here, we need to move beyond the question of “Are parents pushing their kids too hard in sports?” and instead start discussing what we can do about it. How can we find and maintain the balance and perspective necessary to help them reach their potential while still having fun? How can we prevent our children from turning away from sports before they even finish middle school? What sports parent resources are out there to help you set the right tone?

Being Supportive vs. Overbearing

Without parents’ encouragement and support, far fewer children would even give sports a chance in the first place. Parents’ reasons are almost always well-intentioned, simply wanting to see (and help) their kids succeed and thrive. Here’s what research identifies as the benefits most-often cited by sports parents’ reasons for introducing their children to sports:

• The physical and mental health benefits of being active

• Improved self confidence

• Learning skills like teamwork, determination, and resilience

These are all great incentives for getting kids involved in sports. What goes wrong, though? What causes so many children to join a team only to later lose interest? All too often, the same parents that get them into a sport become the reason they want out. A parent’s desire to support their children turns into overbearing. 

When parents push too hard in sports, they put too much pressure on their kids to perform, and they ultimately push their kids out.

Why Are Parents So Obsessed With Sports?

In the beginning, parents can be obsessed in a good way. They are excited, and their enthusiasm gets their kids excited too. 

At some point, though, the dynamic changes. Some parents ultimately make the tough, yet sensible, decision to defer to their children’s coaches. They let their child participate, and they offer support along the way, helping them learn to work through challenges, be a good teammate, and believe in themselves. 

For others, it can be difficult to let go. Instead of being supportive—their child’s #1 fan, supporter, and advocate—they start to become overbearing. 

The distinction between supportive and overbearing is nuanced, but incredibly important.

• Support is child/athlete centered, primarily focused on helping a young athlete reach his/her potential. Supportive sports inspire their children to improve their performance, become better teammates, and enjoy their experience. Supportive sports parents are more concerned with their child’s healthy development than their individual statistics or the team’s record.

• Overbearing is a gentle way of saying “controlling,” and overbearing sports parent behavior is more criticism-focused. Even parents of Olympic athletes can fall into the trap, but as I pointed out earlier, only a very very small percentage of young athletes will even reach high school before they opt out of sports. This illustrates the futility of overbearing parents’ counterproductive behavior, which only makes the experience more stressful for these athletes, parents, and even their respective teams.

Larry Nelson, co-founder of a recent BYU study into “helicopter” sports parents, sums it up perfectly, writing, “Whether parents’ help is good or bad depends on whether it is being used to assist young people in becoming self-reliant adults or enabling a lack of progress...or in other words, whether parents are attempting to support their children or control their children."

Might Your Child Have an Overbearing Sports Parent?

The quicker we can acknowledge what overbearing behavior looks like, the negative impact it can have, and the places where - either intentionally or unintentionally - each of us as parents may be engaging in such behavior, the quicker we can start to address it. With a majority of kids dropping out of youth sports before they reach high school, the reality is that most young athletes are likely to, at some point, decide they no longer want to play. They might come out and say it, but they also may not feel like it’s okay for them to drop out of a sport, especially if they live with an overbearing sports parent. 

I want to focus on what to do if and when this might come up in your own family/home. I think this will be best accomplished using an iceberg as a metaphor. 

Did you know that 90% of an iceberg is hidden from view, beneath the surface of the water? I bring this up to illustrate an important point. When a young athlete hints that they don’t want to play any more—or if their behavior or body language is sending that message, there’s a reason. There might be a number of reasons. What we observe from our kids on the outside can provide us with important insight into what they may be thinking or feeling on the inside.

Are they not having fun? Are they having an issue with their coach or teammates? Are they frustrated by their skill level or role on the team? Or are they living with an overbearing sports parent, and they’ve been afraid to say anything, unsure what to do. There’s only one way to know, and that’s to dig deeper, to see the rest of the iceberg that’s beneath the surface. You’ve got to talk. Ask questions, and listen. Especially if you think you might be an overbearing sports parent, listening to your child is one of the best ways to support them.

Positive Parent Behavior in Sports

If you think you might be an overbearing sports parent, or just want to better understand how to inspire your child without being overbearing, you’re not in this alone. I developed the Champions 101 program in part to equip parents with the tools to be supportive, not overbearing. 

Our kids learn from what we say, but they learn more from what we do. You can tell your child to “just do their best” until you’re blue in the face, but when parent behavior at sporting events contradicts that message, it just confuses the message. With online courses like “Winning Choices for Sports Parents” and “Champions Breed Champions: Modeling Winning Behavior,” you can learn actionable strategies for better sports parenting. Learn more about these courses and more on my website.