Parental Involvement in Sport During Early-Mid Adolescence: Perspectives from Parent-Child Dyads

Abstract

The purpose of this Master’s thesis was to document parents’ and their children’s perspectives on parental involvement in sport during early-mid adolescence. Individual semi- structured interviews were conducted with eight parent-child dyads, composed of eight athletes (three males, five females) between 12 and 16 years of age (M= 14) and eight parents (six males, two females) between 36 and 53 years of age (M = 44). The dyads recruited were involved in four team sports: basketball (n=3), ice hockey (n=2), soccer (n=2), and Canadian football (n=1). Based on the data collected, two articles were written. In article one, Basic Needs Theory (BNT) was used as a theoretical framework (Deci & Ryan, 1985; Ryan & Deci, 2000) to examine parents’ and their children’s perspectives on how parental involvement in sport influences basic psychological needs during early-mid adolescence. The findings revealed how parental behaviours were generally believed to satisfy athletes’ basic psychological needs within the sport context, although need frustration was also reported. Article two explored how parents’ interactions with coaches and teammates were perceived to influence the sport climate. The findings demonstrated the importance of having parents make efforts to establish friendly and supportive relationships with their children’s coaches and teammates to nurture a positive sport climate. Collectively, the findings from this Master’s thesis contribute to the literature by providing a theoretically-informed and nuanced portrait of parental involvement in youth sport.