Teaching Parents How To Stay In Control On Youth Sports Sidelines
Combating performance anxiety experienced by parents
Sending The Wrong Message
The stories of parents acting out on the sidelines are all too familiar. The problems range from parents yelling at parents, parents verbally abusing referees, to incidents of physical violence between adults. The unfortunate part of this behavior is that not only does it teach children that abuse and violence are ways to solve disagreements, but it constitutes a form of emotional abuse.
I don't believe that most parents have a personal value system that includes violence and verbal abuse as proper behavior at youth sports events. If asked, most parents would say that they attend their child's sporting events to provide support, and that they want a positive and healthy environment for their children. Unfortunately, I believe a form of performance anxiety interferes with the ability of some parents to achieve these goals. When the competition on the field heats up, the parents on the sideline or in the stands begin to get energized as well. Because they do not know what to do with all of this excess energy, they sometimes act in inappropriate and negative ways.
Performance Anxiety: Parents Experience It Too!
Performance anxiety is a challenge for all athletes, including the youth athlete. Your child may not necessarily know what performance anxiety is by name, but she sure knows its symptoms. She knows when she gets that strange churning feeling in her stomach that makes her feel like throwing up. She is relieved when you tell her she just has "butterflies" in her stomach. She visualizes the butterflies and tries to get them to "fly in formation."
Parents experience a different kind of anxiety on the sidelines. The kind and intensity of the anxiety will depend on the sport. It may depend on the level of contact in the sport or the skill level of the participants, but, whatever the sport, most parents end up experiencing the game with their child in a very personal way. They see themselves out on the field. They can feel the muscles twitch in their body as they feel their child catches a pass and then fumbles, or swings and misses for strike three. And, they feel the elation when their child hits a home run or scores a goal.
The Intensity Web And Tunnel Vision
While it is natural for a parent to identify with her child to some extent while he is playing sports, the more a parent identifies with him the more the parent is getting tangled up in the "Intensity Web." The problem is that a mother can't release the building intensity the same way as her child. She can't go on to the field and block an opposing player. She can't dribble the basketball and focus her anxiety in that activity. Instead, she is stuck on the sideline, caught more and more in the "Intensity Web."
When the intensity level reaches a certain point, parents move into "Tunnel Vision." By that I mean they literally lose sight of what is important in youth sports and focus narrowly on their child, to the exclusion of everything else. Tunnel vision is often the reason parents act out at the game. While in tunnel vision parents often lose the ability to make good decisions. They find themselves saying things they normally would not say. They find themselves confronting other adults to the point of threats or violence. When a parent cannot stay out of tunnel vision during a youth sporting event he is far more likely to act inappropriately.
How Performance Principles Can Help Parents Avoid Tunnel Vision
Principles designed to help athletes perform better work for parents too! To avoid tunnel vision, you should:
1. Relax your body and mind. Athletes and parents alike perform better when they are relaxed. For the athlete this means modulating the intensity of the game so that they are close to the optimal level of intensity necessary to perform at their maximum skill level. Successful athletes learn how to relax under pressure. If you, as parent, can stay close to your optimal level of intensity you will not court disaster by entering into tunnel vision. Think twice about what is happening around you. Relax, count to ten (there was a reason why your mother told you to count to ten before reacting to a stressful situation: counting to ten allows you to begin to relax your body) and you can be a better role model for your child and have more fun on the sidelines.
2. Practice rhythmic breathing. It sounds so simple: breathe and stay relaxed. Yet, when most people are asked to breathe, they automatically think they need to take deep breaths, in other words, to inhale. This causes the chest to tighten and actually increases the level of anxiety. The key to relaxing your body and mind through breathing is to exhale. As you slowly let the air escape from your lungs, you can feel the muscles in your chest begin to relax. You can feel the tension leave. It feels so freeing to have the anxiety leave the chest. Remember, though, that it will take more than one exhale to bring you back from the brink of tunnel vision. It may take several minutes of relaxed rhythmic breathing to bring you back into focus. As you continue to focus on breathing, the "walls" of tunnel vision will start to disappear and you will be able to see and think more clearly. As your breathing and thinking becomes more relaxed, you are more likely to make good decisions, decisions consistent with, not destructive of, your values.
3. Help other parents avoid tunnel vision. When all the parents of players on a team or in a youth sports program have been through sport parent training to, you are likely to see a noticeable improvement in the atmosphere on the sidelines. That is because everyone will be working from a common value standard that has been agreed upon and documented by his or her signatures. Such pre-season training will also empower you to help keep other parents out of tunnel vision. You can be proactive by intervening with parents whose intensity levels are driving them toward tunnel vision.
Every parent on the sideline is vulnerable to tunnel vision. Situations in the game may push any parent closer to losing control. Because it is easier to keep a parent from ever going into the tunnel than it is to bring him back out, if you notice that another parent is beginning to become too intense, it is up to you and other parents to speak to that parent and help him or her regain focus and relax.
If other parents are not able to help the stressed-out parent get re-focused, then a coach may have to intervene, since it is in the best interest of the team on the field for parents not to enter into tunnel vision and lose control on the sidelines. However, because misbehaving parents are a distraction to the coach, and he or she shouldn't have to worry about the behavior of their parents, it should be up to you and the other parents to help each other stay focused and relaxed.
4. Don't yell; use a "quiet voice." When you need to help someone change their behavior, don't yell at them. People don't listen when they are yelled at. Yelling just prompts a "fight or flight" reaction. When your team's parents agree that its members will help everyone stay in control, a soft voice will help the person return to a fun level of intensity.
5. Keep things positive. You are at your child's competition to cheer for your child. Since you can't dribble the basketball, block a lineman or pass the soccer ball, you need to channel your intensity in positive ways. Cheering is a great way to do just that!
Make lots of noise as you encourage your child's team (remember to cheer, not just for your child, but for everyone on the team). Keep the comments positive. You can create a powerful sideline environment for your team when the cheering is focused, loud and positive. The players will feel inspired by the support and the parents will have a positive way to focus their intensity. As intensity is focused on positive cheering, parents will be less likely to stray into tunnel vision, lose focus and engage in negative, emotionally abusive behavior.
Working To Make Positive Changes
By working together to make positive changes in sideline behavior, you can make the youth sports experience much more enjoyable, not only for yourself, but for everyone else: players, coaches, and officials, even parents of the opposing players. As you and the other parents become more relaxed, your children will not only enjoy sports more, they will perform better.
As the "consumers" of a youth sports program, parents have the power to force positive changes in the way a program is run. By helping a youth sports program create a common positive value system through education, training and publicity, parents are more likely to live up to the expectations of the program, and themselves.
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