Minnesota Study: Parents Need Refereeing
From the Sports Desk: further proof that many moms and dads out there need to stop living vicariously through their kids. A recent Minnesota study paints a disturbing picture of parents’ behavior at their kids’ sporting events. 73% of parents surveyed said they’d witnessed a verbal altercation, and one in seven indicate that they’ve witnessed physical altercations at games and competitions. (Ok - “competitions” might be a stretch. I can’t picture some beer-gutted dad, reeling after his 15th Pabst Blue Ribbon, getting up in some hapless judge’s grill because his daughter only got a 9.5 for that last triple Axel. And no, Tonya Harding is NOT from Minnesota. I checked.) The study raises an interesting question: is a rise in sports-related knee injuries connected to a perception that parents are pressuring their kids to play to the point of injury?
Difficult to say, although it wouldn’t surprise me. Y’know, we do plenty of stories about the unspeakable things that some parents do to their kids. Those never fail to bring out a deep, dark anger in me. But stories like this - well, they just make me sad.
Tags: Minnesota, parents+behaving+badly, sportsRelated Stories
POSTED IN: sports
4 opinions for Minnesota Study: Parents Need Refereeing
Ann Adams
Nov 11, 2005 at 9:27 am
I can remember back in the stone age when kids had fun. Whatever happened to that?
Philip
Nov 11, 2005 at 9:55 am
Hmm, don’t see a correlation between injury and parental attitude. From my experience, the injuries are rising from the poor state of fields these days, along with the dreaded AstroTurf factor. I never played on AstroTurf until college. But now with indoor soccer so prevalent (I play several times a week on AstroTurf) and kids playing during what would normally be ‘off season’ they are playing on it more and more. Astroturf is a menace, it can reach up and grab you at just the wrong time and ruin a knee. I hope every facility in the country quickly goes to field turf with the little bits of rubber ground up added to sand and longer plastic blades of grass. That stuff is marvelous - like walking on cats - and has helped my chronic plantars fascitis heal.
Now my attitude may change as my kids get older and I see different things from parents as a coach and a observer - at this age for me (under 7 leagues) my parents are very well behaved.
Francesca
Nov 12, 2005 at 12:50 pm
It always winds me up when I hear about examples of bad parenting and how it affects children. why do these people have children if they’re not going to do the best that their children need?
http://www.mynameisfrancesca.co.uk
michaelm
Nov 12, 2005 at 6:05 pm
What a great idea for a post!
I have three daughters and all of them play sports (soccer, basketball, track…)
I can be vocal at times (usually due to the suckball refs) but try to restrain myself for the integrity of my kids.
Very interesting…
~mm