Childhood Sports Participation and Parent-Child Closeness Through the Life Course
Loading...
Date
2022-05
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
The Ohio State University
Abstract
In past generations, parents were typically less involved in their children's sporting experience compared to today. With the increasing professionalism and competitiveness of youth sports it is now expected that parents take an active role in their child's sporting experience. Middle-class parents are investing earlier and more heavily in their children's sports participation than ever before. Youth sports are gaining popularity because of their potential to lead to college scholarships as tuition prices continue to rise. Parents concerned about their ability to pay for their child's schooling may have more motivation to push participation in sports. With the current popularity of youth sports, it is becoming increasingly important to understand how sporting involvement affects parent-child closeness.
Most previous research in the field of sport sociology has found positive associations between children's involvement in sports and parent-child feelings of closeness. However, previous research is lacking identifications of specific factors that affect feelings of closeness and indicators of their relative impacts. To identify these specific factors that will lead to parent-child closeness when the child plays sports, it is important to first consider the child's background. Organized sport participation has been found to be positively associated with health and whiteness. Secondly, it is necessary to consider the opportunities available to the child. Income level is likely to dictate to some extent the chances for organized sports participation. Finally, the child's actual sporting experience will be considered. Certain factors such as mistreatment (the child was harmed either physically or mentally) during the sport, especially if this mistreatment was inflicted by the parents, can lessen the benefits of increasing parent-child feelings of closeness. Conversely, if the child's parents report being sports fans or athletes themselves, this could lead to above average parent-child closeness as the pair is able to participate in a shared hobby.
The goal of this project is to identify the factors related to sports that lead to the increase in parent-child closeness and assess the extent to which they lead to feelings of closeness in both the short and long term as the dependent variables of the study. The main independent variables for this project are duration and time spent playing sports (how long the child was involved in sports and how much time per week they dedicated to sports), level of involvement (recreational, high school, club, etc.), goal alignment (if parents and children wanted to be involved in sports for the same reason, for example, for the child to play in college), if the parent considers themselves to be an athlete or a sports fan, socioeconomic factors (parent's income, race, gender, neighborhood), and if the child ever experienced mistreatment while playing sports.
Description
Sports and Society Initiative Research Fair: Outstanding Quantitative Sports and Society Research
Keywords
parent-child closeness, sports participation, parent-child time spent together, sports sociology