Intense Sports Activities of Children and their Support in the Contemporary Family

Abstract

The paper addresses Czech families who raise and intensively steer at least one of their children, who is of compulsory school age, towards one particular sports industry. Sports activities are an integral part of leisure time; however, it depends on their intensity, concept and motivation. What is the leisure time of children pursuing a top level sport like? The aim of the empirical study was to find out what leads those families to such demanding leisure activities of their children, how the children's sports affect the functioning of the family, are the children deprived of their childhood (for example contact with their peers, summer holidays) due to the intensive sports, do they have time for other extracurricular activities, etc.? It also looks into the time and financial demands of the top level sports activities. The qualitative method was used in order to achieve the goal; specifically controlled interviews with children and their parents, analysis of the case interpretations and the framework time frames.

Parenting in sport

“…Parents face numerous other challenges and stressors within the competitive sport environment [36,32,37,38]. Evidence from general psychology points to the relationship between parenting stress and punitive behaviors [39], as such it is feasible that when parents are in particularly demanding sport environments they may react inappropriately [8].…”