There’s no doubting that being a sports parent is a genuinely tough gig at times. If that’s you, take a moment and give yourself some credit, you’re already doing a great job just by facilitating your child’s sport.
Why do I say that? Because you’re reading this. Because you already invest huge amounts of time in your child’s sport, contribute financially for kit and training, wash mountain after mountain of laundry, and build your whole schedule around getting them to where they need to be. That deserves real credit, and it’s not something you’re always given.
None of which means there isn’t room to grow. There’s no such thing as a perfect sports parent, and even armed with all the information in the world, normal human emotion will still sometimes push us towards behaviour that isn’t quite what our child needs from us.
Plenty of organisations and coaches have tried, over the years, to put sporting parents into neat boxes, preaching about how we should behave, expecting us to already know as much about the sporting journey as they do, without ever putting in place the strategies that would actually make the club-coach-parent relationship easier to navigate.
The encouraging news is that a growing number of large sporting organisations around the world have started to recognise this, and we’re looking forward to working across sports and countries again this year. Progress is genuinely being made. There will be bumps along the way, but the direction of travel is the right one.
Parents keep getting labelled, pushy, supportive, vicarious, and every variation in between. The truth is that sports parenting is far too complicated to be reduced to a label and a box. Thankfully, more people are starting to recognise that too.
It’s worth looking at some of the behaviours that make up genuinely great sports parenting, and a few we’d all do well to keep minimising.
Great sports parenting tends to include:
- Your child isn’t defined by their sporting ability.
- Your love and support are unconditional, whatever the result.
- You show up to matches and training, but keep a sensible distance from the action.
- You help your child take responsibility rather than look for someone else to blame.
- Your focus is on effort and process, as the route to results and outcomes.
- You’re thinking about long-term growth, not the next scoreline.
- Home stays a place of safety, not a fan zone — never a shrine.
- You encourage your child to work out solutions for themselves.
- Your support is safe and encouraging, without tipping into “over the top.”
Behaviours worth minimising:
- Comparing your child to other players, or yourself to other parents.
- Looking for someone to blame when things haven’t gone to plan.
- Getting too close to the action, or too wrapped up in training and matches.
- Living through your child — their sporting ability isn’t a verdict on your parenting.
- Losing perspective, and getting stressed over things that genuinely aren’t a big deal.
- Going over the top when they win, or too low when they lose.
- Saving your praise and positive feedback only for the wins.
- The urge to tell everyone else just how talented your child is.
These lists could run on much longer, honestly. Most of us swing across a fair few of these behaviours at different points, they’re not mutually exclusive, and nearly every parent will touch most of them, mildly or otherwise, at some stage.
If that’s true for you too, then all any of us can really do is aim for progress. Perfection as a sports parent is probably out of reach for all of us, and that’s fine. Let’s try to make the time ahead the best yet at building the kind of home and sporting environment our children can genuinely flourish in.
