Of the tens of thousands of e-mails MomsTeam has received over the years, most distressing are those that detail child abuse.
Typical is the following story:
Stairway to abuse?
"Courtney, knock it off!" the coach admonished. "Stop your crying, and wipe your face! You are a selfish player by showing up late and I'm going to get rid of selfish players. You know my rules. Rule number one is to be at practice on time. Late is late, whether it's thirty seconds or thirty minutes. The only time that will be used is my watch, which is set to the school clock. You were five minutes late. Because this is your first time being late, your 'reminder' is to run ten sets of bleacher stairs, and do five defensive hustle drills.
"You're not finished running. Get back up there! Fast," Courtney's coach screamed with the voice of a Marine drill sergeant.
After running the stairs for twenty minutes, Courtney became ill and ran to the bathroom, where she vomited. When she returned to the basketball court - humiliated, scared and too sick to continue - her coach ordered her to finish her stair running.
Courtney's mother, Sandra, reported that a similar scenario played out with another girl the very next day. This time the girl threw up twice. Sandra told me that parents had lodged numerous complaints about the coach, but got nowhere. "We're planning to take this issue up with the school board and possibly file a lawsuit if we can't get positive resolution," said her e-mail, "but I would appreciate any and all guidance, you can give."
I suggested that Sara and her husband meet with the coach and to call me if the matter was not satisfactorily resolved. After the meeting, she wrote again: "We did have the meeting, but I feel nothing was accomplished. The principal and the coach actually sat there in the meeting and laughed at my husband and me when we voiced our concern over making a twelve-year-old girl run until she puked. Their response was, "Well, if she can't take it, she doesn't have to play."
"They said they wanted a winning basketball team, and that they would do whatever it took to get it. I voiced my concerns over the physical and mental well-being of the girls on the team. They told me I would never change a thing, that I was the minority in my way of thinking."
The next day, Courtney brought home a contract for participation in junior high and high school girl's athletics, including a long list of the coach's rules and the punishments for breaking them. One required that players who failed to make at least seven out of ten free throws in practice to run one "up and back" for each free throw missed short of the required seven. Another required players to run one up and back for every free throw missed in a game. The same rules applied to everyone, whether a 12-year-old seventh grader or an 18-year-old high school senior.
Following the list of the coach's rules and punishments was an eight paragraph missive on his coaching philosophy, including statements that:
Only girls he felt could "compete and handle the pressure" would get playing time;
He would "always play to win."
Girls would be punished, as he saw fit, for poor defensive play and lack of hustle;
Only girls who had rides to school in the morning could be on the team because practice started before school buses arrived;
All practices were closed to parents.
"Playing is a privilege, not a right."
What constitutes child abuse in sports?
What actually constitutes child abuse? When is a coach being abusive as opposed to just being a strict disciplinarian? How can a parent tell the difference? Were Courtney's parents right to complain? Was the coach, in fact, engaging in child abuse?
In order to answer these questions, one needs to know what actually constitutes child abuse in the sports context.
As a general rule, child abuse:
Is any form of physical, emotional or sexual mistreatment or lack of care (i.e. neglect) of a child that leads to injury or harm;
Usually occurs when someone uses his or her power or position of trust to harm your child physically, emotionally, or sexually, either directly or through neglect; and
Can be inflicted by a wide variety of actors: a coach, another player, a parent, a volunteer, spectator or an official; and
Can be inflicted on a child regardless of age, gender, race or ability.
Four types of abuse
There are four main types of abuse:
Physical abuse. Physical abuse can take a variety of forms:
Developmentally inappropriate training (Example: a parent who insists that his nine-year old daughter practice and play soccer two to three hours a week, six or seven days a week to the point that she suffers a severe overuse injury [1] : a stress fracture of her pelvis);
Using exercise as punishment (Example: the football coach who punishes players who don't hustle by requiring them to run laps around the field. This method of coaching, tried and true though it may be, is really child abuse);
Requiring an athlete to practice or play hurt (Example: a father of a youth baseball player who demands that his son continue pitching in obvious pain because baseball is a "man's game").
Depriving a child of proper rest, nutrition, or hydration [2] (Example: a football coach who won't let his players stop to drink water or sports drinks on a 95-degree August day).
Furnishing a child performance enhancing drugs [3] or encouraging their use; and
Hazing [4] (Example: Girl's football players who forced five younger teammates to participate in a violent hazing ritual in which they suffered physical injuries).
Emotional abuse: Emotional abuse is any attitude or behavior by any person in a position of power, authority, or trust, such as a parent, coach or official, or even another player or someone vying for a position on the same team, which interferes with a child's mental and social health and development, including attacks on a child's self worth and esteem. This form of abuse occurs even if the attack is intended as a form of discipline or is not intended by the adult to cause harm. It also includes the failure to provide the support necessary for the development of a child's emotional, social, physical and intellectual well-being, such as, for example, a coach giving other players preferential treatment, persistent benching and failing to abide by the league rules on fair and/or playing time [5] Like physical abuse, emotional abuse can take many forms:
Harassing
Yelling
Name calling
Threatening
Insulting
Criticizing
Shaming
Ridiculing
Intimidating
Hazing
Teasing, taunting or bullying
Negative questioning (Example "Why did you miss that open shot on goal?" or "How could you let that guy beat you?").
Shunning or withholding love or affection
Punishing a child for losing/failure to perform up to adult expectations
Sexual abuse: Sexual abuse occurs when a person in a position of power, authority or trust, including a parent, coach, or another teammate, engages in any sexual act with a child [6]
Neglect: Neglect is a chronic inattention to the basic necessities of life and the failure to provide for a child's physical and emotional needs. An adult, including parents, coaches, and administrators, whose neglect (i.e. failure to act) results in or unnecessarily or unreasonably exposes a child to physical, emotional or sexual abuse is just as guilty of child abuse as those who directly participate in such abuse. Neglect can take any of the following forms in a youth sports context:
- Abandonment (Examples: parents who fail to adequately supervise their child's sports activities, to obtain medical treatment when they are injured, or postponing needed surgery so they can continue to play).
- Unreasonably exposing an athlete to the risk of physical abuse (Examples: Adults who, by their inattention, allow players, coaches or spectators to continue participating or attending youth sport contests despite a documented history of violent behavior).
- Unreasonably exposing an athlete to the risk of emotional abuse (Example: A parent who fails to intervene on behalf of his child in the face of a coach's persistent criticism of her child's ability, weight or lack of heart in front of her friends or teammates).
- Unreasonably exposing an athlete to the risk of sexual abuse (Example: A parent who fails to take reasonable steps to protect his child against a sexual predator, such as by allowing closed or private coaching sessions, or failing to ensure that overnight trips to tournaments are properly chaperoned).
- Failing to protect an athlete against unreasonable risk of injury (Examples: Adults who permit youth athletes to play on poorly maintained or dangerous fields or use obviously unsafe equipment, neglect to ensure that coaches receive adequate safety and first-aid training, or to ensure that appropriate safety equipment (first aid kit, AED etc.) is present at all practices and games).
- Failing to take reasonable steps to ensure that an athlete does not play hurt (Examples: Parents, coaches, and other adults who fail to institute or follow appropriate return-to-play guidelines - such as when a player may return to practice and games after suffering a concussion - or who allow a child to play injured).
- Failing to take reasonable steps to ensure that the child has proper rest, nutrition, hydration, and is properly protected against the elements (Examples: Parents who do not see that their teenage children to get the nine hours a night of sleep experts say teenagers need).
- Failure to take reasonable steps to eliminate hazing (Example: Parents, coaches, and administrators who fail to take affirmative steps to prevent hazing rituals.
Abuse - Pure and Simple
When the actions of Courtney's coach are tested against this definition of child abuse, it is clear that he was engaging in at least three forms of child abuse:
Using exercise as punishment. He punished Courtney for being five minutes late to practice by making her run bleacher stairs until she became physically ill. Requiring players who failed to make at least seven out of ten free throws in practice to run one "up and back" for each free throw missed short of the required seven, and that, for every free throw missed in a game, a girl had to run one up and back also constitute child abuse.
Yelling and screaming. The coach committed emotional abuse when he screamed at Courtney "You're not finished running. Get back up there! Fast," in the voice of a Marine drill sergeant.
Insulting. The coach insulted Courtney when he instructed her to "Stop your crying, and wipe your face! You are a selfish player by showing up late and I'm going to get rid of selfish players."
Negative effects of emotional abuse
Perhaps because the damage caused by emotional abuse is not obvious, like sexual abuse, or immediately apparent, like a physical injury, its effect is often overlooked and minimized. But, says San Francisco sports and child psychiatrist, Dr. Maria Pease, the damage is no less real, and, in fact, may be much more damaging and long lasting:
Children are deeply affected by negative comments from parents, coaches, and other adults whom they look up to and respect. One comment can turn a child off to sports forever.
Children are much more sensitive to criticism than adults: being yelled at, put down, or embarrassed is much more likely to have negative psychological consequences and to cause the child to feel humiliated, shamed, and degraded, and to damage her feelings of self-worth and self-esteem. In a 2004 study of emotional abuse of elite child athletes in the United Kingdom, for instance, the athletes reported that abuse by their coaches created a climate of fear and made them feel stupid, worthless, or upset, lacking in self-confidence, angry, depressed, humiliated, fearful and hurt, and left long-lasting emotional scars.
If the abuse becomes chronic, the pattern of negative comments can destroy a child's spirit, motivation, and self-esteem. Over time, the young athlete will begin to believe what adults say about him. Abusive comments, even if intended to improve athletic performance, are likely to have precisely the opposite effect.
Children who experience screaming on a regular basis will react in certain ways to protect or defend themselves. This may constrict their ability to be psychologically healthy over time.
A more sensitive child may be intolerant of screaming very early on, and remove him or herself from the sport. However, he or she is also more likely to endure the screaming without telling a parent or responding to the coach directly, out of fear of reprisal. A child who stays in this situation may be more affected physiologically with overall heightened arousal levels.
A more secure child will likely have the same physiological responses but be less vulnerable to them. He or she may find a way to tune out the yelling or relative comments, but this may come at the cost of emotional sensitivity. As the child becomes less sensitive to his own fearful feeling, he or she can become less sensitive to the feelings of others, leading to loss of empathy. He or she will also become less sensitive to emotions in general, and have a los of sensitivity to positive emotions as well. He or she is also likely to resent the coach for putting him in such a psychologically vulnerable position.
Abuse in the name of winning
Clearly, Courtney's parents and I felt the coach's behavior was emotionally and physically abusive. What was disturbing wasn't so much that the coach and principal disagreed. It was that, because they wanted a winning basketball team (and felt most of the parents did, too), they felt they were somehow justified in doing whatever it took to achieve that objective, no matter the emotional, psychological or physical toll it would likely take on the players.
Is Courtney's story an extreme and unusual case? Neither. Sadly, it is the kind of story I hear virtually every day from concerned parents all across the country.
Yet, hopefully, it illustrates in a powerful way the kind of abuse that is too often condoned in today's "win-at-all-costs" youth sports culture, abuse that, simply put, has to stop.
Adapted from "Preventing Child Abuse in Youth Sports: What Mothers Can Do" in the book Home Team Advantage: The Critical Role of Mothers in Youth Sports (Harper Collins) by Brooke de Lench, Executive Director of MomsTEAM Institute of Youth Sports Safety and Producer of The Smartest Team: Making High School Football Safer (PBS).
Contact: delench@MomsTeam.com
Links:
[1] https://mail.momsteam.com/node/796
[2] https://mail.momsteam.com/node/863
[3] https://mail.momsteam.com/node/800
[4] https://mail.momsteam.com/node/415
[5] https://mail.momsteam.com/node/730
[6] https://mail.momsteam.com/node/791
[7] https://mail.momsteam.com/health-safety/emotional-injuries/general/abuse-in-youth-sports-takes-many-different-forms
[8] https://mail.momsteam.com/health-safety/sexual-abuse/prevention/preventing-sexual-abuse-in-sports-what-should-parents-say-to-their-child
[9] https://mail.momsteam.com/team-parents/coaching/general/survey-finds-spectator-abuse-major-cause-of-referee-shortage