SCOUT MOOC: Presentation Seminar 3 - Families

SCOUT - Sport Clubs Opening Up To all girls’ participation!

Parenting for female social inclusion in sport

Gil Pla-Campas, in brief

PhD. Lecturer & Sports scientist

University of Vic - Central University of Catalonia (UVicUCC, Barcelona, Spain). Member of the Sport,Exercise, andHumanMovementResearchGroup. Leader of the UVic-UCC partner of the SCOUT. Core subjects and research fields: motor learning and development / sports learning and education / sport parenting.

Seminar contents

What is going to be learnt in this seminar?

1. Parents in sport (what does parenting in sport mean?)

• Parenting and development, stressors and efforts

2. SCOUT families (how are the parents of the SCOUT athletes’?)

• Gender, cultural, religious, ethnic and other sport barriers

3. Club transforming actions (how can clubs transform themselves for engaging SCOUT athletes’ parents in sport?)

• Meetings / Parents’ Mentoring / flea market

Parents in sport

1.1. Parenting and development

It is well described the importance of good parenting for promoting positive youth development to athletes. How, why?

1. Parents can positively influence their child's attitude towards sports by transmitting the values of discipline, hard work, and dedication.

2. Parents can provide emotional support and encouragement to their children during both the successes and failures in sports. Parents involved in their child's sporting activities, can help build their child's self-esteem and confidence.

3. Parents can teach their children the importance of teamwork, sportsmanship, and respect for others, which is a key feature for playing volleyball.

4. Parents can also play a critical role in ensuring that their child is safe and healthy while participating in sports. They can provide guidance on proper nutrition and hydration, injury prevention, and injury management.

1.2. Parents’ sport stressors

But, being parent of an athlete is not easy!

The competitive nature of the sport and the team nature of volleyball, are sport inherent factors that make parents feel several emotions. Some of them are bad emotions (irritation, surprise, uncomfortably,…) which sometimes, make them behave inappropriately, even despite their will to be good parents. Research has described several factors and have been understood as stressors, they are:

• Competitive nature of sport. Watching matches

• Parents of the opponents

• Child’s behaviour and attitude

• Child’s opponent

• Preparation for matches

• Child’s performance

• Outcome of the match

• Child’s psychological readiness

Harwood, C. G., & Knight, C. J. (2015). Parenting in youth sport: A position paper on parenting expertise. Psychology of Sport and Exercise, 16(P1),

1.3. Parental efforts

But even though, parents are there for supporting athletes. How? (before, during and after the competition)

Before the competition:

• Preparing the stuff for playing

• Driving them to the club / competition

• …

During the competition:

• Being there watching the competition

• Celebrating team or team mates good actions / efforts

• Cheering up when the team is losing

• …

After the competition:

• Chatting with the athlete about the competition

• Spending all the competition time for the athlete

• Loving and taking care of the athlete, no matter the result

• …

SCOUT families

Source: UNICEF Ethiopia (Flickr)

2.1. Sport barriers

There are several barriers to participate in sport, but SCOUT focus on the following ones

Economic difficulties

Gender

Cultural background

Ethnicity

Religion

2.2. Gender barrier

What do female athletes expect from their parents?

• Help Athletes Physically Prepare For Competitions

• Understand How Athletes Need Help to Mentally Prepare for Competitions

• Encourage The Entire Team

• Focus on Effort Rather Than Outcome

• Interact Positively With Athletes Throughout The Game

• Maintain Control of Emotions

• Provide Positive and Realistic Post-Game Feedback

• Become the coach

• Draw Attention to Yourself or Your Child

• Argue With Officials

2.3. Cultural, ethnic, religious barriers

Sport is based on white and western cultures, so different cultural, religious or different ethnic background can cause a problem, such:

• Volleyball dress codes (or rules) can be offensive.

• It is complicated to find visible women athletes to become role models.

• Some team sport rituals or behaviours can be incompatible with some religious beliefs.

• Mixed gender teams can discourage parents to involve their daughters to play sport.

• Racial incidents, or simply bad attitudes towards diversity, are real and become a strong barrier.

• Religious habits, such as prays, can be incompatible with training or matches.

2.4. Other barriers

Which barriers for parent’s engagement are identified in school* that can be similar to sport?

Expenditure

Comfortability

Prior negative experiences

*summarized and adapted to sport from: Baker, T. L., Wise, J., Kelley, G., & Skiba, R. J. (2016). Identifying Barriers : Creating solutions to improve family engagement. School Community Journal, 26(2), 161–184.

Club transforming actions

Source: UNICEF Ethiopia (Flickr)

3.1. Principles

There is a need for specific supports to individual situations

Despite the similarities between clubs, girls and/or families, every individual (and its context) is unique and demands specific actions. It is good to have actions to promote the parents’ engagement but each one shall be adapted to each case (athlete, family) and environment (club).

Actions shall be coupled with a positive mindset towards diversity

Athletes and families from diverse cultural/ethnic/religious background are in a weak position. The well-known barriersare the reason. Therefore, transforming actions without sensitivity towards differences will not work out.

3.2. Promoting engagement

Parents’ engagement is a key feature for promoting positive development and, later on, sport inclusion.

1. Communicate regularly with the families. Consider different channels and use other languages. Inclusion will arise from the improvements in communication.

2. Provide diverse volunteer opportunities. From high skilled volunteering tasks to easy ones in order to include all parents. Inclusion will arise from offering volunteering from diverse skills.

3. Promote family-oriented events. Consider BBQs, sport fairs, informal matches, open doors days,… Being creative and using parents’ diversity skills to design the activities, is TOP!

4. Bond the aforementioned events to learning activities like lectures or workshops. Why not trying with something about transcultural cooking delivered by diverse families?

5. Ask for (and accept) feedback and input. Coaches and also managers shouldn’t be afraid to ask for feedback and ideas about the club. Inclusion will arise from bidirectional communication and club decision-making.

6. Update parents about their children’s improvements. Parents are necessary part of the club and without their participation, they will not engage in the club.

3.3. Transforming actions

Action 1. Regular meetings.

Goal: to keep families engaged and up to date about club’s educational project.

Action 2. Parent mentoring.

Goal: to welcome vulnerable families and to create bonds between families of the club community.

Action 3. Flea market.

Goal: to facilitate access to sports or volleyball clothing for families with less economical resources.

Thank you!

Don’t forget to implement, keep up to date and record the evolution of the transforming actions; and to read the manual support.

Good luck

*for doubts, don’t hesitate to contact us / me (gil.pla@uvic.cat)