Providing the support that sports parents need

Parents are crucial to children’s participation in sport – and ensuring their productive contribution and support is central to Associate Professor Sam Elliott’s research.

“We are keen to unlock the positive aspects of parental influence in sport and to do this we have to equip families with the right information and resources for the youth sport journey, beginning at the very first training session,” says Associate Professor Elliott, one of the sport participation knowledge experts within the SHAPE (Sport, Health Activity, Performance and Exercise) Research Centre at Flinders University.

Rather than focus on incidents of unwanted parental interference in children’s sport, Associate Professor Elliott’s research has shifted the conversation to identify parents as important assets who also need support.

“Not enough parents are equipped with the skills to maximise support and encouragement, which are necessary for promoting sustained sport involvement,” he says. “Educational support is crucial for parents to ride a bumpy emotional journey – for incidents when their child is injured on the field, or hit unfairly, or when a coach doesn’t select them for the team. This is new terrain for most parents, so they need help to navigate it.

“Some clubs have introduced codes of conduct and pledges to be signed; others introduce punitive measures and penalties for bad behaviour, or introduce restrictive measures that govern what parents do or do not say – and the thought is that these will automatically arrest bad parent behaviour, but our research shows these are not optimal, because they don’t directly address the bad behaviour or affect positive behaviour in the long term.

“Our research proposes new ways to equip families with educational and emotional support throughout the youth sporting journey.”

The most recent research has involved more than 300 hours of field observations across four different sporting codes. It has stimulated the creation of new educational resources in conjunction with sports industry partners, and the published findings will inform a parental role model program being developed with the Sammy D Foundation. Associate Professor Elliott has also been integral in developing such programs as the South Australian Mental Fitness Charter for Sport – a five-point plan for sports clubs that helps them identify mental health issues affecting club participants.

“If we provide support initiatives such as these, clubs can become agile, responsive, resourceful – and they promote a virtuous cycle of support in the family unit, which will benefit parents as well as youth participants.”

A key aspect surrounds the sporting club environment and how a club’s volunteer administrators and wider community can better engage with families from the outset. The great challenge is to improve positive behaviour from everyone involved in sports clubs by promoting information based on evidence-based research – but without imposing further pressures on timestrapped volunteers and parents.

Associate Professor Elliott believes technology can provide convenient and effective solutions and ensure research outcomes are acted on. Rather than trust that pamphlets or brochures are being read by parents and club volunteers, he is broadcasting research-based solutions for community sport through a podcast series, Beyond The Club, which he hosts with Sunday Mail sports columnist Ben Hook. With 40 episodes created – touching on such hot topics as concussion in sport – the podcast has registered more than 6,000 streams across Australia and around the world, with hits in the US, UK, India and Japan, all the way to Lithuania, Poland and Israel.

“The fact it reaches an international audience means the information is translational – but to me it’s most important that any parents who hear this information can use it and apply it immediately. It’s a timeless resource that sports clubs can point to and parents can keep accessing as they need this important information.”

Associate Professor Elliott believes this all helps parents and clubs to maximise sport participation, which can go a long way to reducing the economic burden of physical inactivity in Australia, estimated to be $555 million each year. He says it will also translate to better quality parental involvement in their children’s sporting activities.

“Whatever a parent’s contribution or capacity is, we want to see them optimise their impact and do what they do well,” he says. “It’s not about increasing their time, or introducing further pressures, but improving the quality of their involvement – and research shows that children benefit from that, in both social, psychological and developmental ways.

“It all underlines that youth sport can and should be vibrant, safe, sustainable and welcoming.”