Blog 4: Family and Sports
By: Elise Osborn
Sports is one of the biggest industries both economically and within the realm of entertainment. According to Global Sport Insights the sports industry has been ranked as the 9th largest industry in the world, and it is expected to grow in hundreds of billions of dollars within the upcoming years (Anani, 2024). Not only are sports a globalized economic powerhouse, but they’re also an agent for socialization, connectivity, and expressing identity. Within the United States alone a large majority of the media and culture is sports related through the consumption or discussion of sports, through the playing of sports, and the identification/perceptions created based on sports affiliations (Cranmer, 2020). For example, certain fanbases associated with a specific team may have positive or negative stigmas surrounding them due to the affiliation to the team and vice versa. A specific example would be the Philadelphia Eagles in the NFL (National Football League), if you meet an Eagles fan you might expect them to be crazy or wild because the rest of the fanbase is portrayed as such. But this association with the team can also give the team a bad reputation and garner unwanted or unsavory attention because of the rowdy fans.
Moving on, sports are not only significant due to their cultural and economic impacts but also because they are used as an agent for socialization by families and parents. Not only do families themselves act as a primary means of socialization, but often parents utilize sports to socialize their children, share memorable messages, strengthen parent-child relationships, and shape children into athletes (Cranmer, 2020; Starcher, 2015; Erdner & Wright, 2018). Getting children involved in sports can be beneficial for the development of a child, it can give them the opportunity to learn to work in groups or teams, enact roles of leadership, and become competent communicators. But these benefits are not guaranteed, as previous research confirms, the communication that occurs within the family as it relates to sports can determine a child’s attitudes and decisions regarding their respective sport. In this blog I will discuss the importance of family communication in relation to the lack of reporting of concussion-related symptoms amongst youth athletes, decisions of whether or not to continue sports participation, sports self-efficacy, and just the overall impact of messages concerning sports from a parent to child.
Memorable Messages Matter
Memorable messages are the messages that first come to your mind, the words that come to the forefront of your memory that have a significant impact on you for the rest of your life. For example, when I was younger, I was involved in various sports, and my father would always tell me to “put in the effort now and play it out until the end”. Those words carried me through all my games, and now I don’t play those same sports anymore but that message from him I still remember and apply to my current work and relationships. Many parents, more specifically fathers, will use memorable messages as a means of socializing their children whilst their child is actively or passively participating in sports (Starcher, 2015). Depending on the message, there can be negative or positive connotations and they can impact the relational satisfaction between parent and child. With my example earlier of a memorable message that I received from my father, that was a positive message as it equipped me with good values that have helped me to become a productive member of society and it had a positive influence on satisfaction in our relationship. Meanwhile an example of a negative memorable message would be “win at all costs”, this message may socialize a child into thinking that winning is the only thing that their parent cares about leaving a lasting impression that sports are meant to be won not just to experience and grow (Starcher, 2015).
Based on this definition and the examples provided of memorable messages, a conclusion can be made that what you say and how you say it matters! You never know what your child is going to remember or what is going to become a memorable message for them. That is why, if you are a parent or want to be a parent, you need to be aware of your own attitudes, perceptions, and beliefs to communicate effectively and offer positive messages to your children. Because what you say now can influence your relationship currently with your children and far into the future. Now that I have defined memorable messages, I want to take this and apply it to family communication regarding youth sports concussion reporting.
Conversations about Concussions
Concussions as it relates to youth sports are not uncommon, concussions are the name of the game especially in sports that involve close contact and collision. But it is quite shocking just how underreported concussions in youth sports are. Despite increasing education and awareness of concussion symptomology, still over 50% of young athletes fail to report or disclose concussions (Fontana et al., 2022). This is quite dangerous as prolonged failure to seek medical treatment for concussive symptoms can increase long-term health care risks especially with youth who need a longer amount of time to recover from concussions than adults (Fontana et al., 2022) But why is this? One new area of research that is attempting to bridge this gap is by observing the communication that occurs between parents and their children. As I stated earlier, the messages we share to our children can and will impact their own attitudes, beliefs, thoughts, and actions. So, the messages we share to our children about concussions can and will impact whether they decide to come forward and disclose their concussive symptoms (Fontana et al., 2022; Kroshus et al., 2019).
Parents that pressure their children to comply to their standards and expectations often have children that will continue to play through injuries. In Family Communication Patterns Theory (refer to Blog 1 for a more in-depth explanation) these behaviors would be most associated with families that follow a conformity-orientation. This conformity can be seen in how some parents pressure their children to keep playing, even if their child has a concussion or concussive symptoms but it may be done due to a multitude of reasons. Some of the most common ones are because parents may feel that they are playing or living through their child’s sports achievements or as a justification for investing their time and resources into their child’s sporting activities (Fontana et al., 2022; Kroshus et al., 2019). Due to these pressures to conform and keep playing due to their parents wishes, a child’s sport self-efficacy (the perceived ability to complete a certain task) will be hindered (Erdner & Wright, 2018). Overall, conformity orientation within families in regard to sports through pressure of performance is not a positive tactic in preventing or encouraging your children to report possible life altering injuries. Instead, high conversation orientation should be used, open communication and conversations about concussions should take place. Prioritization of health and longevity for your child should be the main priority in these conversations. Do not allow your own perceptions, attitudes, and fear of the results of the conversation to dictate whether you will or will not have this conversation with your children. Because a concussion can happen to any child or anybody for that matter, it is important to know what to look for and the next steps.
Coming up Next
In the next blog I will be discussing the impact of family communication on health behaviors, such as health-seeking, preventative care, sex, etc.
Discussion Questions:
- What is a memorable message that you received from a parent? How has that message affected you till now?
- If you played sports, did you ever feel pressure to perform well from your parents? Would you have downplayed injuries to keep playing?
- How would you open up a conversation about concussions with a child? What are some strategies you would take?
References
Anani, Z. (2025, January 28). The true size of the global sports industry. GIS. https://gis.sport/news/the-true-size-of-the-global-sports-industry/
Cranmer, G. A. (2021). Setting the agenda: A playbook for tackling family communication in sport. Journal of Family Communication, 21(1), 70–75. https://doi.org/10.1080/15267431.2020.1856852
Erdner, S. M., & Wright, C. N. (2018). The relationship between family communication patterns and the self-efficacy of student-athletes. Communication and Sport, 6(3), 368–389. https://doi.org/10.1177/2167479517711450
Fontana, J., Cranmer, G. A., Ash, E., Mazer, J. P., & Denham, B. E. (2022). Parent–Child communication regarding sport-related concussion: An application of the theory of planned behavior. Health Communication, 37(8), 923–934. https://doi.org/10.1080/10410236.2021.1876326
Kroshus, E., Hoopes, T., Bernstein, E., Chrisman, S. P. D., & Rivara, F. P. (2019). Direct verbal communication by parents, pressure related to sport achievement, and concussion safety in youth football. Journal of Health Communication, 24(10), 770–779. https://doi.org/10.1080/10810730.2019.1668512
Starcher, S. C. (2015). Memorable messages from fathers to children through sports: Perspectives from sons and daughters. Communication Quarterly, 63(2), 204–220. https://doi.org/10.1080/01463373.2015.1012221