3 Ways Parents Prevent Their Child's Sports Success - and How to Avoid Them!
Last week, Greg and I presented at UMass Boston in an adapted physical activity class taught by Lisa Drennan, founder of Merge Consulting. During our presentation, we shared the Inclyousion Sports mission, our roles and responsibilities, our unique style of teaching sports to children, and examples of participation barriers that children may face.
One barrier that we shared was focused on how parents can unintentionally become barriers to a successful inclusive sports experience for their children. As parents of young people ourselves, please know that we share this with no judgement! We hope that if you identify with any of these examples, you can give yourself some grace and be open to exploring new ideas.
Parents want what’s best for their kids, so you’re probably thinking, how could parents be a participation barrier? Since our past experiences and our assumptions often inform our current decision-making, we often filter ideas and new information unconsciously. This filtering has a name (unconscious bias) and it can result in unsupported judgments in favor of or against something.
When it comes to inclusive sports, we’ve seen three main ways that a parent may be a barrier for a child to participate based on unconscious bias, or other reasons:
Limiting preconceived notions
Lack of awareness or knowledge
Sharing misinformation
Read along to see if you’ve ever inadvertently been a barrier to participation and how to avoid these actions to encourage your child to reach their potential in sports!
Limiting preconceived notions
If you have had an experience like I shared here, then you may have formed an opinion about your child’s ability or enjoyment of sports that is based on a single negative experience. This is no fault of yours, having a negative experience with a sports program can be traumatizing and can make parents and children alike very resistant to trying again.
On the other hand, you may not have considered trying a sports class before because your child…
is shy or nervous
has challenging behaviors
has never tried extracurricular programs
struggles with new experiences
learns new things in unique ways
prefers to have you support them during new experiences
hasn’t found a program that they liked
requires accommodations that haven’t been available in other programs
doesn’t like being in large groups
recently went through a life transition (a move, new baby, new school, etc.) and is struggling with attachment to you
If you can relate to any of these, we see you and we feel you! You are an amazing parent for everything you do to support and protect your child. Every parent and child’s experiences are unique, and no one can change past experiences that a family has had.
Rather than expecting parents to forget their past experiences in a one size fits all program, sports organizations must empathically approach each child wherever they are. Programs must inform and educate parents about the ways in which they can support their child to find success, and offer modifications where necessary. Perhaps the child would do better with a parent/child style class, where a parent can participate alongside the child. Or maybe the child would benefit from having a sensory toy nearby. Maybe a personalized social story would make transitions easier, or maybe a sibling participating along with a child would make them more comfortable.
As a parent, try to recognize any potential preconceived notions or unconscious bias you may have, and when ready, consider a sports program like Inclyousion Sports that can support you and your child to explore their interest in sports. It’s okay to be nervous, share your concerns with your coaches and lean on them to guide your child to safely be introduced to new activities.
Lack of awareness or knowledge
As a small family business with a very small advertising budget, it’s difficult to not be able to reach as many people as we want to share the business with. Often families that join our program had no idea that we existed or didn’t understand that their child would be a good fit. This is especially true for typically abled/neurotypical children, as the term “inclusive” can be assumed to mean special needs only.
After a number of conversations with parents who wondered whether their child could find success in our program, we decided that one of our business goals needs to be an educational campaign on the Inclyousion Sports definition of “inclusive” and the value of intentionally creating sports programs for all children. Through social media, our website, parent testimonials and speaking engagements, we’re hopeful that more parents will understand and seek out inclusive sports like Inclyousion Sports.
Inclyousion Sports offers inclusive sports programs, which have been designed for all kids to be successful. All kids means children of all abilities, socioeconomic statuses, races, ethnicities, religions, genders, gender identities, sexual orientations, and geographic locations. Our goal is to have children in our classes who reflect the communities that we are serving. This means kids with and without disabilities.
The benefit of inclusion goes beyond the social importance of playing with children similar to and different from your child (which includes greater empathy, reduced bullying and more). Teaching sports in small class sizes and with an intentionally designed curriculum, supports children of all abilities to learn new skills and build confidence in themselves. We heard from our own son how excited and confident he was to play “pick up the trash”, a game we play at Inclyousion Sports, in his gym class at school. Also to attend a birthday party where they played with a parachute and he knew how to safely use it while having the time of his life! All of these experiences compound to support kids navigate their development and life outside of Inclyousion Sports classes, which is the ultimate goal.
Sharing misinformation
To build on the other two barriers, when parents combine their past experiences with a lack of accurate program information, it can lead to inadvertently sharing misinformation about programs. This is especially relevant when parents assume programming is for certain children and not others, and then share that assumption as fact with other parents. While there’s no bad intentions, when program information is shared via word of mouth or social media by people who haven’t participated, it turns into a game of telephone. Along the way, parents of children who may benefit from classes may assume that this program is not for their child.
If you are interested in inclusive programs and want to learn more, consider asking the organization running the program if children of all ability levels actually participate in the programming. Welcoming children of all abilities and intentionally designing a program for children of all abilities are not always the same thing. While we all look to our social network for recommendations on date night ideas, kids extracurriculars and vacation tips, when it comes to innovative programming, consider contacting the organization directly to get the full story.
Do you have any other tips for avoiding becoming a participation barrier for your child? Share in the comments!
To learn more about Inclyousion Sports, visit https://inclyousionsports.com/ or email info@inclyousionsports.com
-Kristen
