"On the Border: Sports Parent Training in El Paso, Texas"

El Paso, Texas is a multi-cultural city of 700,000 across the Rio Grande River from Juarez, Mexico. Like most communities across the United States, large and small, El Paso has experienced problems in youth sports, including out-of-control parents. In 1999, youth sports violence in El Paso escalated. At city-sponsored football games, incidents of violence included parents:

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Pulling knives on and threatening other adults

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Using sideline equipment to attack parents of players on the opposing team

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Engaging in fist fights with other parents

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Physically and verbally abusing children on the sidelines

The Solution

Paula Powell, Sports Operations Supervisor for the City of El Paso, had had enough. As a member of the National Association for Youth Sports, she decided to use the NAYS parent education program as the foundation for establishing a youth sport parent education program in El Paso. At the same time, Dr. Keith Wilson was making the case in "Performance Talk," his weekly newspaper column in the El Paso Times, that towns and municipalities needed to do whatever it took to stop parental misconduct and violence at youth sports contests. After reading Dr. Wilson's columns, Powell invited him to join her in an effort to change the face of youth sports in El Paso in the fall of 2000. Together, they hoped to develop a program that would:

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Reduce or eliminate violence, negative talking and taunting on sidelines;

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Improve communication between coaches, officials, parents and children; and

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Put fun and learning back into youth sports.

In developing the program that would become known as "Youth Sports 2000," Powell and Dr. Wilson agreed that training would have to be:

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Mandatory. In order for a child to participate in city sponsored youth sports, at least one parent would have to attend training;

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Comprehensive. The training sessions would need to last 3-½ hours to cover the subject.

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Flexible. To accommodate parents' schedules, training sessions would need to be provided on both weekend mornings and weekday evenings.

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Multi-Lingual. For monolingual Spanish speaking parents, Spanish translation would need to be provided.

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Videotaped. A videotape of the presentation would need to be available so parents unable, or initially unwilling, to attend a live session could still receive training in order for their child to play.

The Program

Dr. Wilson and Paul Powell recognized that getting any parent to pay attention over the course of three and one-half hours, much less a parent angry at being forced to participate in the first place, would be a challenge. The program they developed was therefore broken up into a series of short presentations using a variety of different media.

Registration: Setting The Stage

As parents registered, they were shown videotapes of city football games, including footage taken by a local television station showing parents, undeterred by the fact that the TV cameras were filming, verbally abusing players, officials and coaches at a 1999 game. Powell used stories and artwork by children embarrassed by their parents' behavior to drive home the message that children want their parents to behave better at sports contests.

Performance Parenting: An Introduction

As the keynote speaker, Dr. Wilson began the formal program by identifying the kind of problem behaviors parents exhibit on the sideline and offering some solutions. The aim of the presentation was to help parents understand how they can create a sideline experience that is not only enjoyable but actually improves their children's athletic performance.

Dr. Wilson introduced the parents to "performance parenting," a concept he has developed based on the belief that the majority of parents know what to do on the sidelines, but lose their ability to conform their actions to that knowledge because they get caught in the "intensity web" .

Dr. Wilson then taught parents techniques to help them control their intensity and avoid tunnel vision. Dr. Wilson concluded his presentation by reminding parents to remember the values participating in youth sports teaches. When parents are value-focused, they have a good reason to keep the sideline a healthy and safe place.

Empowering Parents To Report Child Abuse

Next, the Child Crisis Center of El Paso made a presentation on child abuse, including a discussion of two documented cases of child abuse occurring on the sidelines of youth football games in El Paso in 1999. This portion of the program was designed to help parents refocus on positive parenting skills. When parents recognize that positive skills work with their children they are less likely to react abusively.

The other positive aspect of this presentation is that it empowered parents to get involved if they see abusive behavior taking place on the sidelines by reporting the incident to the appropriate authorities.

Let's Go To The Videotape

To provide another perspective on the challenges faced by El Paso parents at youth sports contests, the El Paso Parks and Recreation Department played a 30-minute training videotape created by the Parents Association for Youth Sports (PAYS) an organization under the NAYS umbrella working to improve youth sports, including parents' behavior at sporting events.

Educating Parents On The Rules Of The Game

All too often, a parent verbally abuses an official based on his or her disagreement with a particular ruling on the field. Many times, the parent's rage is based on a misunderstanding of the rules and a failure to realize that the rules that apply in youth contests are often not the same as apply during college or professional games.

Recognizing this area of conflict, an important part of Youth Sports 2000 was to review the youth rules of the particular sport. To encourage audience participation, representatives from each team in attendance were asked to present the rules and answer questions from parents. This not only gave parents a chance to learn the rules, but also to see how well the coaches knew them.

Signing A Pledge Of Good Behavior

At the conclusion of the training session, all participants were required to sign a parental agreement pledging that they would conform their behavior to the PAYS Code of Ethics.The signed forms were then forwarded to PAYS, which then sends parents quarterly newsletters containing insights and tips designed to help them improve their behavior at their children's sporting events.

Organization Is The Key

Part of the reason for the success of Youth Sports 2001 is due to the fact that it is sponsored and supported by the City of El Paso. The Parks and Recreation Department has budgeted the additional resources to enforce the program. Organization is the key to its success. For the fall football season, over 2700 parents received training. Each participant is registered and cross-referenced to the team on which their child plays.

Once coaches realized the city was serious and had the organization and resources to enforce the training requirement, they made sure the parents of their players attended. Before the first game, the rosters were checked against the list of participants who completed the training. Those few children whose parents had failed to attend the training were not allowed to play in the first game. So their children could play the rest of the season, parents were given a chance to receive training by reviewing a videotape of the training session.

A significant by-product of the fall training has been an increase in the number of complaints parents have lodged against coaches for employing questionable training and coaching tactics. This is viewed as a positive outcome because it means that parents have taken seriously their role to provide a healthy and positive sporting environment for their children. While behavior on the sideline has not been perfect, the general atmosphere has improved and the number of incidents of poor behavior has decreased significantly.

Training will be mandatory for the coming basketball and baseball/softball seasons. Before summer 2001, it is estimated that over 10, 000 local parents will have received training. The results of the program are being closely monitored, both locally and on a national level.

Parents are a vital link in the triangle of partipants who help to make youth sports the best that it can be. When parents, coaches and officials all have the same behavioral expectations, the sporting environment is more likely to be a rich and positive one for the kids. Children, after all, are why we, as parents, are involved in youth sports in the first place.

Performance Parenting is a feature of MomsTeam aimed at helping parents be even better sports parents. Dr. Wilson will focus on applying performance principles to sports parenting. As parents better understand their role and are more empowered by education, the sideline experience will be healthier for all of us.