I am often asked what it really looks like when parents get stuck in the Intensity Web. The following examples shows how parents can get caught up in their children's soccer game and lose focus, dramatically increasing the chances that they will act in ways that do not reflect their values.
Setting The Stage
It is a great day for a soccer game. Two Under 12 select girls' teams (red team and blue team) are meeting in the final game of the season to determine which will represent their league in the city tournament. The teams have already met twice during the season, each coming away with a win. Both games were often physical, with neither team willing to be intimidated by the other. Each team feels the other team plays dirty, and that the referees haven't called the previously games fairly.
The teams will share one sideline; their parents stand on the opposite sideline. Instead of practicing good sportsmanship [1] by exchanging friendly greetings, each group of parents stakes out "their" own turf on the sideline and eyes the other with suspicion and distrust. After all, they are "the enemy".
During the pre-game warm up, the red team parents become a little agitated when they learn who has been assigned to referee the game: a man who they feel has not treated the red team fairly in previous games and one who they think lacks the skills needed to handle a game with playoff implications. The parents start to talk about how this may be a long day for the red team. The game hasn't even started and yet the tension level has already gone up a notch or two.
When the game begins, the teams feel each other out. After the red team's goalkeeper saves a weak shot, she punts it to midfield. Two players jostle a bit for position as they go up for the 50/50 ball. The blue team player heads it to a teammate; the red player ends up on the ground, rubbing her head. The parents on the red team start abusing the ref. "Hey, ref! Are you blind?" one yells. "Are you being paid by the blue team?" another shouts? The sideline intensity continues to increase.
Perfectly Executed Offside Trap Or Perfect Through Ball?
Several minutes later, the blue team's defense clears the ball to midfield, where a midfielder traps the ball and heads towards goal. Dribbling the ball into the red team's offensive third, she sees a striker streaking down the left side completely unmarked. As she is about to send a through ball for the wing to run under, a red team defender steps up field hoping to create an offside trap. But the offside flag of the assistant referee stays down.
The non-call creates a break away. Only the red team goalkeeper stands between the blue team striker and goal. Drawing the goalie off her line, the striker drives a hard shot just under the crossbar into the back of the net. Goal! The referee signals a goal for the blue team and the blue team parents begin to chant, "Ole, Ole," in celebration of the goal and their Mexican heritage
Caught In The Intensity Web
The goal sends the red team parents straight into the sticky clutches of the "intensity web." Their girls have worked hard but have given up a goal. They feel the officials have missed several calls and, to make matters worse, the obnoxious parents from the blue team are taunting them by singing their celebration song.
The stage is set for bad things could happen. One of the red team parents is tempted to charge over to confront the assistant referee for failing to call the wing offside. Another parent wants to scream at the blue parents that they have no class. The red team parents are frustrated; they are a ticking time bomb seconds away from exploding. They are beginning to experience what I call "tunnel vision [2]".
Tunnel Vision
Tunnel vision is the state where a parent loses his or her ability to see the whole picture of the youth sports contest they are watching. Instead of being able to think about different alternatives for handling a situation based upon experience and good judgment, the parent starts to think there are only a few ways to respond the intensity of the moment. Tunnel vision often causes parents to take a difficult situation personally and believe they have to respond forcefully to defend their honor, or the honor of their team or family.
Tunnel vision is so dangerous because it limits a person's range of options and makes the parent blind to the rest. Often times, under extreme pressure, a parent will respond with violent, or at least verbally abusive, behavior. The person loses the ability to think clearly and often will take action that he or she would normally not dream of doing.
Bad Things Can And Do Happen
In our soccer example, when the red team parents experience tunnel vision in the intensity web, their response can be either positive or negative. By calming down, a parent on the red team sideline may be able to get out of tunnel vision and, by seeing the big picture again, head off an ugly scene. When the coach or parent leader is not able to calm down the sideline and pull them out of tunnel vision bad things are likely to happen.
The bad results might include several of following:
A parent moves across the dividing line between parents and starts to confront them about their lack of class. This could end in a physical confrontation between parents.
A parent verbally attacks a referee and may be cautioned about his behavior. If the referee does not handle the situation in a positive way, it may escalate into a red card, a parent ejection, or, worse, physical violence.
Red team parents may encourage their daughters to physically harm one of the blue team's stars. In the next close playing confrontation an elbow may be thrown to the face or a hard slide tackle made from behind, resulting in a potentially serious - even career ending - injury to the player.
At the end of the game, a parent may physically confront an opposing player and push her to emphasize how mad he or she is.
These are a few of the bad results that can and do happen when parents get caught in the tunnel vision part of the intensity web and do not have the skills to get out of a difficult situation. Chances are, if you asked the parents on the red team an hour before the game if they were in favor of violence in youth sports, they most likely would say no. They would tell you that they believed in good sportsmanship, that they want a healthy environment in which their children can play sports.
In the heat of the moment, however, as the intensity web is woven tighter and tighter, it is all too easy for a parent to end up with tunnel vision, their ability to make good decisions severely clouded. Parents literally, and figuratively, lose sight of what is important in youth sports. The inability to stay out of tunnel vision is often the reason parents act out at a youth sports contest.
How To Avoid Tunnel Vision
The good news is that disaster does not have to strike when parents move close to tunnel vision. Several types of interventions can help parents stay focused.
Parent Training
When parents have been through a good sports parent training class [3] they will learn several skills to utilize that will help them stay more focused. When all a team's parents have completed parent training, they develop a comraderie on the sidelines that allows them to help each other keep things positive.
When
the team has built the expectation that only positive things will
happen on the sideline, when one parent starts to cross the line, other
parents will help them regain their focus and continue to behave
appropriately.
Performance Skills
Just like athletes, parents on the sidelines can improve their performance as spectators by learning and practicing such techniques as relaxation their bodies and mind and rhythmic breathing. To learn more about the performance skills I recommend parents learn to avoid tunnel vision, click here [2].
Links:
[1] https://mail.momsteam.com/alpha/features/cheersandtears/five-ways.shtml
[2] https://mail.momsteam.com/node/720
[3] https://mail.momsteam.com/alpha/features/parenting/on_the_border.shtml