Parental perspectives on children's soccer participation: influences, expectations, and the role of support in sports development

Abstract

For elementary school children to continue playing sports, appropriate support from those around them is needed. Parents are closely involved in their children's sporting activities, and depending on how they are involved, they can have a positive or negative impact on their children. To date, there have been few studies in Japan on the thoughts and attitudes of parents involved in their children's sports clubs. This situation needs to be improved by considering appropriate support from parents and management of sports clubs. In this study, we surveyed parents of children in soccer clubs, asking them to provide open-ended responses about their children's sports history; the circumstances surrounding their children's initial experience with soccer; their past, present, and future concerns about participation in soccer clubs; their hopes for what their children will learn from soccer; and the sports categories they envision their children pursuing in the future. Several fathers listed soccer as their primary sporting experience, while mothers listed tennis, basketball, or other sports besides soccer. The reasons children start playing soccer are influenced by their parents, siblings, and friends. Parents desire for their children to learn about “mental growth”, “continuation and personal growth”, and “team play and communication”. These results demonstrate the mental processes of parents, an aspect that has not been elucidated until now. We believe that it could be an important finding for the appropriate practice of sports parenting and sports club management in the future. However, it would also be necessary to conduct additional surveys in the future that include the competitive level of the team and the individual child, as well as the degree of contribution of the parents to team management.