PARENTAL GUIDANCE
Top athletes get much more than genes from their competitive mothers and fathers
While the Williams, Mannings, Sutters, Currys and Griffeys are a few examples of high-profile families rich in athletic talent, many communities have their own families who dominate the local sports scene.
It’s easy to credit genetics when multiple family members find success on the ice, field, court, track or pool. But as important as it is to have parents with a strong athletic gene pool, it’s also important to have parents who expose young athletes to the type of winning conditions that put them on the podium.
Anyone who has been involved in children’s and youth sports knows the important role parents make in their child’s athletic development.
From chauffeur to cheerleader, parents can make or break a kid’s love of the game. But how big a role does a parent’s athletic history play in the athletic success of his or her offspring ? Does understanding the game and culture of the sport make it easier for a parent to support his or her child through the physical and emotional ups and downs that accompany an ascent through the club, provincial, national and international ranks? Or does having an athletic parent put extra pressure on a child to do more than just have fun?
And when it comes to parents, which one has the most influence on their child’s athletic career? Is it the one with the most sports experience and success, or can a parent of beer-league fame have just as much impact as an Olympian?
To find out more about the role of parents in the making of elite athletes, Stuart Wilson, currently pursuing his PhD at the University of Ottawa, reviewed data compiled from a previous study done by New Zealander Melissa Wilson, featuring 229 athletes from Canada and Australia. The athletes, who were divided into three groups based on their performance level — elite (competed internationally), pre-elite ( junior international or senior national team status) and nonelite (all remaining lower levels of competition) — were compared to their parents’ history of sports participation (recreational or competitive sport) and achievement.
“To the best of our knowledge, this is the first (study) to describe the relationship between an athlete’s skill level and the sport participation and expertise of their parents,” Wilson said.
Not surprisingly, elite athletes were three times more likely than pre-elite athletes to have parents who participated in competitive sport and twice as likely as non-elite athletes to have parents with a history of participating at recreational sport.
Elite athletes were also more likely to have parents who were also elite athletes and who shared the same sport.
Wilson said he wasn’t surprised to find that elite athletes were more likely to have parents who also played sports. What he did find interesting is that as you go up the scale of athletic skill level, from non-elite to elite, the proportion of parents who participated in sports also goes up.
“Parents who competed at an elite level were overrepresented among elite athletes and under-represented among non-elite athletes,” reported Wilson. “Non-elite level parents were overrepresented among non-elite athletes and underrepresented among elite athletes. Similarly, pre-elite level parents were under-represented among non-elite athletes.”
This pattern of sport engagement remained the same whether it was the mother or father who was athletic, but among the athletes polled, there were more athletic fathers than mothers.
Wilson suggests that the experience gained by parents while playing sports themselves makes them better able to support their child’s athletic journey. That often starts with enrolling young athletes in the sport in which the parent excelled.
Often that familiarity with the sport means being able to expose them to more opportunities or carve a better path to success as compared to parents who may not understand the culture of sport. Also worthy of note is that the higher the level of athletic achievement obtained by the parent, the better they are able to provide emotional and directive advice to their young athlete.
Keep in mind that not all support provided to young athletes by their equally athletic parents is verbal. It’s likely that a significant amount of what’s transferred between sporty parent and sporty child is done so more by example than by lecture. The more kids see their parents being active and/or competing in sport, the more likely they are to follow suit.
All of this makes sense if you take a closer look at those families who dominate your local sports scene. It’s likely that one or more parent was or is still involved in sport or sports an active lifestyle. It’s also likely that their participation in sport was at a competitive level.
“We often hear about how parents can put pressure on kids, but this study takes a more positive look at parents and the role they play in their child’s athletic success,” Wilson said.