The purpose of this study was to enhance understanding of how parents are socialized by their children's organized youth sport participation. Five semistructured focus groups were conducted with youth sport parents (N = 26) and analyzed using qualitative methods based on Strauss and Corbin (1998). Sixty-three underlying themes reflected parents' perceived socialization experiences resulting from their children's organized youth sport participation. Each theme represented 1 of 11 subcategories of parental change, which were subsumed within four broad categories of parent sport socialization (behavior, cognition, affect, relationships). Each category of parental change was interconnected with the other three categories. Moreover, six potential moderators of parent sport socialization were documented, namely, child age, parent past sport experience, parent and child gender, child temperament, community sport context, and type of sport setting (individual or team). Together, these findings enhance understanding of parent sport socialization processes and outcomes, thus opening avenues for future research on parents in the youth sport setting.

Although existing literature in organized youth sport illuminates developmentally appropriate parent involvement behaviors, practitioners have yet to effectively disseminate evidence-based tools and strategies to parents. The purpose of the present pilot study was to design, implement, and assess an evidence-based education program for parents in organized youth sport. 39 fathers and 42 mothers from seven youth soccer teams were assigned to full-, partial-, or nonimplementation conditions. Parents and their sport-participating children (41 boys and 40 girls)were administered surveys at pre and postseason. Data reveal a positive impact of the implementation on aspects of parent involvement, the parent-child relationship, and salient child outcomes.

The present study examined the alignment of goals parents construct for their children with parent verbal sideline behavior at the earliest stage of youth sport. Semistructured interviews, parent journals, and in situ observation were employed with 4 parents over the initial 15 months of their children’s organized sport participation. Parent goals were categorized within the multiple goals framework (Caughlin, 2010; O’Keefe & Shepherd, 1987), verbal sideline behaviors were categorized using Holt, Tamminen, Black, Sehn, and Wall’s (2008) framework, and case narratives were constructed to offer an interpretation of the interplay of parent goals and verbal sideline behavior. Parents largely wanted their children to learn about sport and have fun; however, parents also reported changing some of their goals over time based on child outcomes and their evolving perceptions of the youth sport context. Often parent goals did not seem to align with verbal sideline behaviors. Findings highlight the development of parent goals over the earliest stage of their children’s organized youth sport participation, multiple forms of these goals (e.g., personal, conventional, task, ego), and both consistencies and inconsistencies between these goals and verbal sideline behavior.

Perception relates not only to the optical information from the environment but also to the perceiver's performance on a given task. We present evidence that the perceived height and width of an American-football field goal post relates to the perceiver's kicking performance. Participants who made more successful kicks perceived the field goal posts to be farther apart and perceived the crossbar to be closer to the ground compared with participants who made fewer kicks. Interestingly, the current results show perceptual effects related to performance only after kicking the football but not before kicking. We also found that the types of performance errors influenced specific aspects of perception. The more kicks that were missed left or right of the target, the narrower the field goal posts looked. The more kicks that were missed short of the target, the taller the field goal crossbar looked. These results demonstrate that performance is a factor in size perception.

The purpose of this study was to explore the influences on parental involvement in youth sport. Specifically, this study sought to address the following research questions: 1) What are the individual and environmental influences on parental involvement? and, 2) How is parental involvement influenced by these individual and environmental factors? Data collection occurred through an online survey, which was completed by 70 parents. Data were first analyzed through thematic data analysis to identify the influences on parental involvement. Vignettes of different types of parental involvement were then created to illustrate how involvement was influenced. Results indicated that parents were involved as supporters, coaches and managers, and providers of opportunities. The types of involvement appeared to be influenced by: (1) the youth sport context, (2) other parents and coaches, (3) concerns regarding own behavior, (4) knowledge and experience of sport, (5) previous experience as a sport parent, and (6) goals, expectations, and beliefs for child's sport. Such findings highlight the importance of considering individual and socio-contextual factors when creating parent initiatives to ensure messages are more appropriately tailored to parents. Such tailoring will, hopefully, result in the development of more effective initiatives.