Rider:
Pain of Emotional Injury No Less Real
Abuse defined
Federal legislation provides guidance to States by identifying a minimum set of acts or behaviors that define child abuse and neglect. The Federal Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act (CAPTA) (42 U.S.C.A. § 5106g), as amended by the CAPTA Reauthorization Act of 2010, defines child abuse and neglect as, at minimum:
"Any recent act or failure to act on the part of a parent or caretaker which results in death, serious physical or emotional harm, sexual abuse or exploitation"; or
"An act or failure to act which presents an imminent risk of serious harm."
Child abuse in sports can arise in a number of different contexts: emotional abuse, physical abuse, sexual abuse, or neglect.
Emotional Abuse
- Is a verbal attack on a child's self esteem by a person in a position of power, authority, or trust such as a parent or coach
- Occurs even if the attack is intended as a form of discipline or is not intended by the adult to cause harm
- Takes many forms, including any of the following:
- Name calling ("Hey, Fatty!" or "Hey, Shorty" or "Hey, Mr. Klutz")
- Threatening ("If you don't win, you can forget about me buying that new CD you want")
- Insulting ("You're stupid" or "You're clumsy" or "You're an
embarrassment to our family" or "You don't deserve to wear that
uniform.")
- Bullying or taunting by a teammate.
- Criticizing or ridiculing ("You are a loser" or "I thought you were better than that. I guess I was wrong.")
- Intimidating ("Watch out kid, my son is going to break your nose")
- Yelling at a child for losing or not playing up to the adult's expectations
- Hazing
- Negative questioning ("Why didn't you win?" or "How could you let that guy beat you?")
- Shunning
or withholding love or affection (not speaking to, hugging, or
comforting your child after she plays poorly in a game or practice, or
her team loses; showing obvious signs of disappointment)
- Punishing a child for not playing up to your expectations or when her team loses.
Physical Abuse
- Occurs when a
person in a position of power, authority or trust such as a parent or
coach purposefully injures or threatens to injure a child
- Takes many forms, including any of the following:
- Slapping
- Hitting
- Shaking
- Throwing equipment
- Kicking
- Pulling hair
- Pulling ears
- Striking
- Shoving
- Grabbing
- Hazing
- Punishing "poor" play or rules violations through the use of excessive exercise (extra laps etc.)1 or by denying fluids.
Sexual Abuse
- Occurs when a person in a position of power , authority or trust engages in "sexualized" touching or sex with a child
- "Sexualized
touching" is where touching, instead of being respectful and nurturing,
is done in a sexual manner. Examples include:
- Fondling instead of a hug
- Long kiss on the lips instead of a peck on the cheek
- Seductive stroking of any area of the child's body instead of a simple pat on the rear-end for a good play.
What Is Harassment?
Your child is being harassed
when she or he is threatened, intimidated, taunted, or subjected to
racial, homophobic, or sexist slurs. Sexual harassment includes
comments, contact or behavior of a sexual nature that is offensive,
uninvited or unwelcome. For more articles on sexual abuse in sports, click here .
Neglect
Neglect is a chronic inattention
to the basic necessities of life such as supervision, medical and
dental care, adequate rest, safe environment, exercise, and fresh air.
Neglect in a sports setting make take the following forms:
- Injuries are not properly treated
- Athletes are forced to play hurt
- Equipment is inadequate, poorly maintained or unsafe
- Road trips are not properly supervised
- Allowing bullying by teammates.
It is important, however, to distinguish between actions or inactions that rise to the level of abuse and those that constitute negligence, which is a failure to use reasonable care under the circumstances. Parents, coaches, and administrators act negligently when they fail to use reasonable care to protect athletes from a foreseeable risk of harm, such as, for example, a football coach who allows a player with clear signs of having suffered a concussion to return to the field instead of barring his return and referring him for a full concussion evaluation by a clinician trained in the diagnosis of concussion.
1. Gershoff, E.T. (2008).
Report on Physical Punishment in the United States: What Research Tells Us About Its Effects on Children. Columbus, OH: Center for Effective Discipline ("compelling a child to engage in excessive exercise or physical exertion" is physical punishment).
Surprisingly Common
According to a widely reported 1993 survey conducted by the Minnesota Amateur Sports Commission:
- Almost half
(45.3%) of those surveyed (both males and females) said they had been
emotionally abused while participating in sports (i.e. called names,
yelled at, or insulted);
- Slightly more than 1 out of 6 (17.5%) said they had suffered physical abuse while playing sports (i.e. hit, kicked or slapped).
- More than 1 in 5 (21%) said they had been suffered neglect while playing sports (pressured to play with an injury)
- 1 in 12 (8%) said they had been sexually harassed while playing sports (called names with sexual connotations)
- 1 in 30 (3.4%) said they had been pressured into sex or sexual touching.
Twelve years later, a 2005 study by researchers at the University of Missouri, the University of Minnesota, and Notre Dame University reported in the Journal of Research in Character Education found that emotional abuse in youth sports was still widespread:
- More than four in ten coaches have loudly argued with a ref or sport official following a bad call (youth athletes said 48% of coaches engaged in this behavior, although only 20% of parents said they did so).
- Seven out ten youth athletes have heard a fan (most likely a parent) angrily yell at an official.
- Four in ten youth athletes have heard a fan angrily yell at a coach.
- One in eight parents has angrily criticized their child's sports performance (another study, this one conducted in Fall 2005 by Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota, reported that more than 4 in 10 parents had seen a verbal altercation between a parent and their child that they thought was inappropriate).
- One third of coaches have angrily yelled at a player for making a mistake, a high rate "of significant concern" to the study's authors, who wondered, "What would we think if a third of our teachers yelled at students for making mistakes, and 1 in 10 made fun of a student?"
- One in seven athletes made fun of a less-skilled opponent. About one in ten coaches admitted to making fun a team member. These numbers suggests that on most teams there is a high probability that one or more of the lesser skilled players has been at least mildly victimized.
- More than four in ten youth athletes reported having been teased or yelled at by a fan or seeing a fan angrily yell at or tease another player.
Emotional abuse: the damage is no less real
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 child psychologist 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 to whom they look up and respect, or even by more skilled teammates (e.g. bullying ). One comment can turn a child
off to sports forever.
- Children
are much more sensitive than adults to criticism: 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.
- If
the abuse becomes chronic, a 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 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 be adaptive in the moment to
survive the screaming, but ultimately be maladaptive and constrict
their ability to be psychologically healthy over time.
- A
more anxious, sensitive child may be intolerant of screaming very early
on, and remove himself from the sport (he maybe the lucky one).
However, he is also more likely to endure the screaming without telling
a parent or responding to the coach directly out of fear of reprisal
from the coach. A more sensitive child who stays in this situation may
be more affected physiologically with overall heightened arousal levels
as discussed above.
- A
more secure child will likely have the same physiological responses but
be less vulnerable to them. He may find a way to tune out the coach,
but this may come at a cost of emotional sensitivity. As the child
becomes less sensitive to his own fearful feelings, he can become less
sensitive to the feeling of others, leading to loss of empathy. He will
also become less sensitive to emotions in general, and have a loss of
sensitivity to positive emotions as well. He is also likely to resent
the coach for putting him in such a psychologically vulnerable
position.
Children involved in sports often
make strong connections and develop a special trusting relationship
with their coaches and instructors, and if the coaches’ power is
abused, children can suffer severe psychological injuries that may last
a lifetime. In a 2004 study of emotional abuse of elite child athletes
in the United Kingdom, for instance, athletes reported that the abuse
by their coaches created a climate a 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.
Adapted from Home Team Advantage: The Critical Role of Mothers in Youth Sports (HarperCollins) by Brooke de Lench.
About: Brooke de Lench is a pioneer in child athlete safeguards and rights, a risk reduction in sports and legal consultant. Founding Executive Director of MomsTeam Institute, Inc., Producer/Director/Creator of the documentary, "The Smartest Team: Making High School Football Safer" (PBS). Director of Smart Teams Play Safe, Publisher of MomsTEAM.com, and author of Home Team Advantage: The Critical Role of Mothers in Youth Sports (HarperCollins), and Brooke is also a founding member of the UN International Safeguards of Children in Sports coalition. She can be reached by email delench@MomsTeam.com , and you can follow her on Twitter @BrookedeLench.
Updated June 21, 2018
Teaser title:
Abuse in Youth Sports Takes Many Different Forms
Teaser text:
Abuse in youth sports takes four basic forms: physical, emotional, sexual and neglect. Emotional abuse is the most common form and leaves scars no less real.