Emotional abuse is the most common form of injury in children’s sport. It largely goes unseen but can have profound and long-term effects, not just on the sports field.
Don’t be fooled that the term ‘emotional abuse’ represents only the extreme end of the spectrum where children are obviously distressed by screaming, aggressive spectators. Emotional abuse can be more insidious, perhaps inadvertent and unintentional, but no less damaging.
Consider the parent who makes the ride home miserable by offering ‘observations’ about players, coaches, officials and even their child’s capabilities. Consider the coach who shuns or ignores a child, plays ‘favourites’ within the sport or maintains the status quo on positioning.
Emotional abuse has been defined as behaviour that attacks a child’s emotional development and occurs when an individual [often, but not always an adult] treats a child in a negative manner that impairs the child’s sense of self-worth. It can include rejection, verbal assaults that create a climate of fear or frighten a child, or deliberately encouraging anti-social, deviant and destructive behaviour.
If you’ve ever suspected a child is feeling anger, anxiety, fright, sadness, guilt, shame, envy, jealousy or disgust, while playing sport, then look around at the adults involved. Adults have the power to make sport a fun experience where children make friends, build self-esteem and confidence, and achieve goals. Equally, adults have the power to create traumatising experiences that rob children of those positive opportunities.
And research suggests it’s not just those who are directly subjected to that behaviour, but that regular exposure to background anger is equally distressing for children who witness it. A New Zealand study—‘The Effects of Adult Involvement on Children Participating in Organised Team Sports’[1]—recorded children’s observations of the adults around their sporting events, noting that angry shouting from the sideline frightened and de-motivated them.
The finding supported earlier research that background anger at children’s sports events can be uniquely distressing for children because of its ‘public’ nature, and that children experiencing sustained background anger can become increasingly sensitised rather than desensitised.
Previous research has also found that anger expressed between adults in the sports context, is especially more distressing for children than anger expressed between an adult and a child.
This is borne out by anecdotal evidence in Australia from Socceroos coach Ange Postecoglou. In backing the Play by the Rules’ recent ‘Let Kids be Kids’ campaign which raises awareness of the impact of poor sideline behaviour, Postecoglou says that he had first-hand experience of background anger as a young player.
As a 10 or 11-year-old playing soccer, Postecoglou recalls one match where parents on the sideline started arguing and fighting, leaving him and other children from both teams on the field, huddling together for support. He said it had a profound impact on his awareness that the parents had forgotten that they were there to give their kids a fun experience, but the reality was the opposite.