Sport Mont (Mar 2010)
YOUTH SPORT AND PARENTS
Abstract
One of the characteristics of contemporary sport is certainly a wide array of sports and sport discliplines young people can choose among. This is particularly obvious through establishment of numerous schools of sport as places where people can acquire fundamental sport knoweldge and skills. The point of selection for such an engagement is the school, or, in other words, primary school children. The development of young athletes starts at a very early stage. They are faced with high demands and exposed to training sessions of different scope and intensity. In order to direct complex processes in sport efficiently and well, various factors need to be considered that affect it to a lesser or higher degree. One of those factors is indisputably the family, i.e. the influence parents have on meeting the children’s need for physical (sport) activity. In the process of children’s socialization that factor is given the greatest prominence. Therefore, parents are a crucial factor in young people’s sport engagement and, thus, cannot be taken as a constituent part of a sports organization’s surroundings, but as a partner in their development.
