Parents have an extremely influential role to play in their child's tennis experience, whatever the level of their involvement, but this can be of either a positive and constructive or negative and destructive nature.
It is primarily in the home that a child's beliefs, values, perceptions, attitudes and goals are shaped.
Why do parents become so animated and involved in their child's sport? Parents often have a very strong desire to make things right, this 'righting reflex' has a tendency to make parents over-zealous in their attitude towards their child. This often well intentioned desire can lead to confrontation rather than collaboration, telling the child what they should or should not have done as opposed to respecting the child and believing that their child has the answer and encouragingly drawing it out of them. Some parents may perceive that their child's competence is their competence. They may wish to live or re-live their sporting experience through their child and assume their child has to do as they did.
A child's participation in tennis can offer parents the opportunity to rewind their own sporting experience and make up for their own perceived 'failures' and missed opportunities.
The following quote highlights the importance of the ‘me and we’ boundary."Sometimes I think that by being so involved in our kids' sports, we dilute their experience. After all, it's not their win, it's our win. Do all the valuable lessons – losing, striking out, missing the winning shot – have the same impact when Mom and Dad are there to immediately say it's okay? As parents, we know that at some point we need to make it their game, their recital, their grades. If we share every element of their lives, we're cheating them out of part of it. As hard as it is to risk missing her first home run, or not being there to comfort him after the missed foul shot, at some point we need to take ourselves out of their ball game. Because that is what good parents do.” (Sport in Society, Jay Coakley, 2001. Original extract from Keri, 2000, p55)
Sport can be a fantastic vehicle for providing experiences which develop skills and qualities such as discipline, confidence, persistence, self-awareness and responsibility and an acknowledgement that hard work leads to achievements. These competitive sporting experiences however, need to be owned by the child if he or she is to really benefit from the many life skills that competitive sport has to offer. Self-awareness and responsibility are seen as perhaps the two key factors in generating improvements in performance.
If the 'me - we' boundary is crossed as the parent seeks greater control or begins to define their own self-worth in terms of their son or daughter’s successes or failures, then the great opportunity to really develop these two skills will be lost.