Behind every sports success is a pushy parent. Aibu to agree?

[Breakdancing]

https://non-perfectdad.co.uk/does-every-sport-success-have-a-pushy-parent-behind-them/

I would agree with this article to a certain extent.

It’s everything though as pp said. Parents have to be prepared to give up time, money etc. I wouldn’t be getting up at 4.30am to take my dc swimming personally but others will think it’s worth the sacrifice.

Nah, but it does require supportive parents, particularly in the UK where access to sports facilities is very uneven, and public transport is shit.

There's also the geographic luck of the draw - there's not going to be many world class mountainbikers from Norfolk, or county-level swimmers living 50 miles from the nearest 50m pool. There are only six indoor velodromes in the whole of the UK - unsurprisingly all of our track cyclists grew up within easy reach of them.

@LaeralSilverhand and other PPs you’ve made me think of Matthew Syed’s: Bounce.

Well done. I think you're amazing. Too many people think that trying hard, putting yourself out wil damage.your kids .

As others have said, it’s not about being pushy; it’s about being willing (and able) to spend hundreds a month on training and petrol to get them everywhere they need to be, it’s about being willing to sacrifice your own time and couple time and family time, it’s about being their biggest supporter and their soft landing place when things don’t go well.

What DH and I have actually noticed is that the kids of the genuinely pushy parents don’t go far. The parents push and push and the kids might get through say the swimming levels very quickly but any love for swimming gets lost along the way. We’ve got two kids who compete at a high level for their sport and pushy parents at these levels are rare, but I’ve seen loads of them in the lower levels of the sports as the kids have worked their up.

I have a DC that was naturally very good at her sport , she gave it up at 13 the age when the need to train really picks up as she didn’t love it . From the outside looking in I saw dedicated parents supporting their children not pushy parents . Only the DC themselves can do the training it takes to be exceptional

But you also sacrifice time and family resources for your other children as well.

Some parents are pushy. But ultimately kids aren't going to become sporting geniuses unless a) they really really want to do it and b) they have some natural talent for it.

I think a lot of parents call other parents "pushy" because they are embarrassed that their kids are not making it and need to come up with some negative reason why other kids are more successful. it can't be that the successful kids are more talented or harder working than their kids, it must be the "negative" way the pushy parents are bringing them up by forcing things on them.So they get to blame other parents for why their kids are not achieving, because the ones that are are hothousing. Maybe easier to do this that to face up to your own kids lack of talent or your own poor parenting.

I had this to a degree at school. I was pretty successful at academic subjects at school but my parents were labelled pushy but they were not really that bad at all and pretty much left me to it. It was just that I was pretty good at lots of things and had natural talent (sport wasn't one of them).

I wonder what difference it would make to world record times if everyone in the world had the opportunity to train for those events at a young age.

I think you're doing an amazing job.

Part of parenting is encouraging well rounded children and supporting them to be the best they can be.

I'm sure you must be wrong. One of my dc is very high achieving, and we didn't take a position on his choices at all, on the basis that they were his choices.

Wonder what kind of lives the siblings of these kids have with parents concentrating on the " talented" one

I think definitely supportive parenting is key. Even things like having a parent who can drive, having a car, being able to afford training etc.

Nope. A SUPPORTIVE parent/coach/family/siblings AND ££ are usually what’s needed. Not pushy. The ‘pushy’ dad myth is just that - it’s a numbers game, I’m a coach and there’s probably a 1000 pushy dads per ONE single successful sports person.
Those other 1000 successful sportspeople? They mostly have the parents who support, help, drive, sacrifice and prioritise their time for their kid.

I watched a programme where these kids were interviewed - all were older teenagers by this point. They basically all said it was shit. And although in theory they were told the parent would support their interests, they knew it was not practical for them to provide much support or money.
The programme maker made the programme when watching a sport with uo and coming athletes and suddenly realising that alongside parents watching, there were lots of siblings as well. The exceptions were when all the children excelled at a particular sport e.g. Williams sisters.

When you see a successful sportsperson you’re looking at the encouraging primary school teacher, the grassroots volunteer coaches, the mum/dad who got up at 5am to drive them half way across the country, the grandparents who gave money for hotels, fuel, equipment, the community that sponsored the equipment or the big trip, the friends who understood that training came first but were there for them, the siblings who cheered from the stands…

And every parent seems to think they are supportive and not pushy. But read what sports coaches say. They all talk about pushy parents of up and coming future sports stars.

I have a young relative, Team GB, next Olympics in sight - but it’s practically bankrupting the parents! They’re WC and the money needed for the kid to travel with a guardian to the competitions for rankings and to qualify is a real struggle. Think driving across Europe rather than being able to fly to save £ and staying in hostels, bringing own food etc.
££ definitely helps, because the resources needed, particularly for teens in a pathway can be mad. Grants and funding is extremely limited, even when you’re Team GB.

Only children!

How do you figure that?

We are a single parent family.

You just have to make adjustments

I only have a sample size of one, but I know the parents of an Olympian. She is absolutely living out her Father's dream. I'd say the border between supportive and pushy is very blurry in this example.

This is such a great point. In some sports when you represent GB in junior international competitions you have to pay for transport, hotels and even the GB kit (100s for a tracksuit!) yourselves! There must be so many kids who miss out as their parents can’t afford this, that’s if the kids have got this far.

My DD’s gymnastic club the fees do go up as you do more hours, but as the number of hours increases the cost per hour decreases. However, presumably this only works if you have lots of recreational gymnasts to allow this fee structure, this wouldn’t work in other sports.

Pushy is the wrong word - supportive more like. My daughter does something similar to sports - think music etc, what started as a music class as a baby evolved into what we have now her competing at national levels - its ALOT of hours of waiting around, and stressful competitions, and we've always said - as soon as she doesn't want to do it we will stop. My son is sporty, we do about 6-7 hours of this sport every week - with away games taking hours, we are often split up during the weekend! Do i like it? Absolutely not - it's tiring. Do they like it? Yes. So, here we are.

I think it’s also important to point out that DH and I support the other kids our kids train with and their parents support our kids. We all share lifts, feed DC, praise DC, comfort disappointed DC etc together. It’s not this horrible cut throat environment where parents are looking down on each other and elbowing each other out the way.

Honestly, it’s often a shit show. You say ‘Supportive parent, elite sports kid’, I say ‘Parent prepared to sacrifice the entire family’s life on the altar of one member’s sport’. DS had a friend and classmate when he was in the early years at primary whose older brother was a talented tennis player on the county training pathway. Aged five and six, she spent every weekend in the car to and at his events, and half her weeknights involved dinner in the car and doing her homework at a sports centre. It was no life for a small child, no matter how good her brother was..