Soccer parents: why they rage
According to a new study, if you have a tendency to become upset while driving, you're more likely to be the kind of parent who explodes in anger at your kids’ sports matches.
Research by kinesiology PhD student Jay Goldstein of the University of Maryland School of Public Health found that ego defensiveness, one of the triggers that ignites road rage, also kicks off parental ‘sideline rage’, and that a parent with a control-oriented personality is more likely to react to that trigger by becoming angry and aggressive.
By surveying parents at youth soccer games in suburban Washington DC, Goldstein found that parents became angry when their ego got in the way. “When they perceived something that happened during the game to be personally directed at them or their child, they got angry,” says Goldstein. “That’s consistent with findings on road rage.” And the parents who Goldstein defines as control-oriented were far more likely to take something personally and flare up at referees, opposing players, and even their own kids, than autonomy-oriented parents, who take greater responsibility for their own behavior.
“In general, control-oriented people are the kind who try to ‘keep up with the Joneses’,” Goldstein says. “They have a harder time controlling their reactions. They more quickly become one of ‘those’ parents than the parents who are able to separate their ego from their kids and events on the field.”
However, Goldstein says, even autonomy-oriented parents get angry – and when they do, ego defensiveness is the trigger. “While they’re more able to control it, once they react to the psychological trigger the train has already left the station.”
How it affects kids
Fan rage in professional sports has been studied, but there is little data on why parents erupt in anger at their kids’ sports matches, something that’s happening more often, according to coaches. “What effect does that have on the kids? Parents have tremendous influence over how their child interprets an experience by what parents do and say,” says Goldstein, who once ran youth soccer events professionally. His interest in finding out more about parental anger started with an incident at one of those tournaments. “A parent snapped and struck a child, not her own. I thought, ‘there's more to this than being a bad parent’. What would trigger that kind of reaction?”
Getting angry
In 2004, Goldstein enlisted voluntary input from 340 parents attending their kids’ soccer games in the Washington suburbs. Before the game, parents filled out a questionnaire that would identify them as either control or autonomy oriented. As soon as the game ended, parents answered another questionnaire that revolved around what, if anything, during the course of the game may have caused them to become angry – defined as ‘an emotional state that varies in intensity from mild irritation to intense fury and rage’.
More than half of the parents – 53% - reported getting angry, to some degree, during the game. The sources of the anger were most often the referee and their own children’s teams. Most parents reported getting only slightly angry for less than two minutes. Around 40% of the parents reported responding to their anger with actions that ranged from muttering to themselves to yelling and walking toward the field. “Regardless of their personality type, all parents were susceptible to becoming more aggressive as a result of viewing actions on the field as affronts to them or their kids,” says Goldstein. “However, that being said, it took autonomy-oriented parents longer to get there as compared to the control-oriented parents.” He hopes to further study the effects of sideline rage on the kids and to use his findings to develop interventions that can help parents recognize the onset of anger triggers and control their reactions.
Tips for staying calm on the field…
- Try controlled deep breathing Inhale for 4 seconds and exhale for 8 seconds.
- Suck on a lollipop It’ll occupy your mouth and remind you that you’re there for your child.
- Visualize a relaxing experience such as floating on water.
- Chant a mantra Repeat a calm word or phrase
- Stretch out Do yoga-like muscle stretches.
- Be rational Replace angry thoughts with rational ones, such as, “this is my child’s game, not mine”, or “mistakes are opportunities to learn”.
- Don’t say the first thing that comes into your head Count to 10 and think about possible responses.
- If you didn’t see the game, ask your child how he played rather than whether his team won. Praise your child’s effort before commenting on the results.
The study appears in the June 2008 issue of the
Journal of Applied Social Psychology.