Selected Columns
Kaleidoscope of the Heart: A child's sport should not be a parent's obsession
From the Vancouver Winter Olympics to the Senbatsu high school baseball tournament, the year thus far has had no shortage of sporting events featuring young people at the top of their game and striving for victory.
And as one event follows upon another, I'm sure some parents out there are thinking, "Right, it's time to put my own child in a sports club."
Of course, it's certainly not a bad thing for kids full of vim and vigor to get active and use their bodies, or for children to pursue a sport if they truly want to. However, some caution on the part of parents is still needed.
"I shouldn't press my children do the impossible, right? I know that," some readers may be thinking, but that's not what I'm talking about. What I'm worried about are not so much the children, but parents who get completely absorbed in their kids' sports clubs.
Among mothers afflicted with clinical depression, cases where the condition was triggered by stress from their children's sports clubs are not uncommon. While a woman may be happy to get her son into a soccer club, she can be hit with a daunting series of stress factors, from having to play a number of team-related roles such as ferrying kids around, to competition with other parents over their kids' performance and doubts that their own child's lack of progress stems from the mother's own lack of effort -- and so-on and so-on.
I tend to think that getting into sports should be about fun and good health, and that no one should push themselves to do the impossible. However, it seems that once in that mode it's difficult to get out again. Particularly if one's own child shows some talent, the life of the entire family becomes focused on that child and his or her potential. If there are siblings, they often cheer on their brother or sister but are themselves lonely, which once more becomes a stress factor for the mother.
Of course, behind the emergence of an elite athlete is the effort of many, and I'm sure there are times when both family and coaches must pour all their strength into one athlete's success.
However, for most boys' and girls' sports clubs, that kind of all-consuming commitment shouldn't be necessary. A mother cannot take constant absorption in her child's games to the point that her mind and body begin to break down.
Certainly, among those who stood on the Olympic podium in Vancouver I'm sure there were some whose mothers built a 24-hour support structure for them, allowing them to ride to Olympic glory. But regular people like us may think like, "I'm often asked to make a boxed lunch for my kid's sports club, but which sport was it? Soccer? Baseball? What was it again?" This might be going a little too far, but if parents can be so at ease while taking care of their kids, isn't that a good thing? (By Rika Kayama, psychiatrist)
Click here for the original Japanese story
(Mainichi Japan) April 4, 2010