Parental strategies for supporting children’s psychosocial development within and beyond elite sport

Abstract

There remains limited research into the role that parents play to support their child’s psychosocial development within elite youth sport contexts. The present study was conducted in an English professional youth football (soccer) academy that has intentionally integrated the 5Cs framework (Harwood; commitment, communication, concentration, control, confidence) into its player development process. The purpose of the study was to explore parents’ interpretations of their roles and experiences of supporting young athletes’ psychosocial development in this context. Six focus groups were conducted with 30 parents (17 fathers, 13 mothers; M_age = 44.8) who had a child in the foundation (8–11 years) or youth development phase (12–16 years). The transcripts were analyzed using reflexive thematic analysis. Parental strategies employed to support their child’s 5Cs within and beyond the academy included providing encouragement and tailoring feedback, establishing and sharing expectations with their child, creating an autonomy-supportive environment, encouraging participation in activities outside of the academy, and understanding football and the nature of the academy. Barriers perceived as hindering parents’ support reflected the salience of coach-parent communication at the academy. Accompanying recommendations and implications are discussed for enabling improved congruency between coaches and parents, and how parent education can be better tailored to support intentional psychosocial development within elite youth sport pathways.

Lay summary: Conducted at a professional football academy that has integrated a psychosocial framework into the player development process, this study explored parents’ interpretations of their roles and experiences of supporting young athletes’ psychosocial development. Parents discussed practical strategies, barriers, and recommendations to support their child’s development in and beyond sport.

IMPLICATIONS FOR PRACTICE

• Parents can support young athletes’ psychosocial development by considering the broader contexts in which they occupy, including how they communicate at home, how they control their emotions within their sport programs, and how they demonstrate commitment at school.

• When parents employ an intentional approach to supporting psychosocial development, young athletes may become more aware of the possibilities for transferring their psychosocial skills beyond football, or their immediate sport context.

• Strengthening the communication between parents and coaches within a sport program, and the education offered to parents and coaches, can help sport parents better support their child’s psychosocial development within and beyond the sport program.

• Engagement with a parent 5C program can provide parents with a meaningful return on their time in academy football to not only support their child but to help them navigate the known demands of being a parent in an elite youth sport environment.

When appropriately structured, sport has been identified by researchers and practitioners as an optimal context for young people to develop the physical, psychosocial, and emotional skills necessary for successful functioning in society (Gould & Carson, 2008). Sport-based positive youth development (PYD) and life skills programs are intentionally structured to support these positive outcomes by offering activities designed to help young athletes develop an array of internal assets (e.g., Holt et al., 2017). The PYD approach to youth development focuses on young athletes’ strengths, rather than their deficiencies, and development is thought to occur through bidirectional relations between individuals and their life contexts over time (Holt, 2016). Life skills are defined as the personal assets, characteristics, and psychosocial skills that can be developed and/or refined in sport and transferred for use beyond sport (e.g., school, home, music, arts; Gould & Carson, 2008). However, regardless of whether a program is PYD-based or not, young athletes’ psychosocial development requires an intentional and proactive approach from all sport stakeholders (e.g., organizations, coaches, parents; Holt et al., 2017). Although the majority of research has focused on life skill development within PYD-based programs, a growing body of research has started to explore the psychosocial development of elite young athletes to promote development within and beyond sport (e.g., Johnston et al., 2013; MacNamara & Simpson, 2019).

Psychosocial development in elite youth sport contexts

Elite youth sport is considered a “professionalized” model of youth sport participation offered to children and adolescents, with extensive time demands, high expectations, and an emphasis on performance that can contrast and conflict with psychosocial development (Fraser-Thomas & Strachan, 2015). Here, psychosocial development refers to psychological (e.g., controlling one’s emotions) and social (e.g., developing relationships) skills and assets that are relevant within elite sport contexts, as well as motivational, self-regulatory, and interpersonal attributes that traverse PYD and athlete development scholarship (see Harwood et al., 2015). As PYD through sport is not guaranteed (Coakley, 2016) and young athletes can experience negative, or less desired, outcomes from competitive sport participation (e.g., burnout; Goodger et al., 2007), researchers have focused on how to better support elite young athletes’ positive developmental outcomes to encourage successful performance in and beyond sport (e.g., Harwood & Johnston, 2016; Preston et al., 2021). Importantly, the development of psychosocial characteristics in sport is not conceptually detached from influencing young athletes’ performance or physical skill development (e.g., Harwood, 2008; Harwood et al., 2015). Researchers suggest intentional and equal pursuits of both physical and psychosocial development for optimal sport participation (Holt et al., 2017; Pierce et al., 2017). Employing an intentional approach to psychosocial development represents an explicit strategy toward PYD, whereby coaches delivering sport programs provide deliberate opportunities for the discussion and practice of young athletes’ psychosocial qualities within sport. It is from this position and foundation that developed and/or refined psychosocial skills can be transferred for use in other contexts (i.e., life skills; Bean et al., 2018; Pierce et al., 2017 ).

To guide empirical work, models and frameworks have been developed to assist stakeholders’ intentional efforts to support psychosocial development in youth sport (e.g., Fraser-Thomas et al., 2005; Lerner et al., 2005), with some sport-specific frameworks that provide focus on nurturing assets that underpin both PYD and athletic performance in elite and competitive youth sport contexts (e.g., Harwood, 2008; Johnston et al., 2013). One such framework that evolved from an identifiable, cultural absence of attention to youth players’ psychological development was Harwood’s 5Cs approach (2008). As a scientist-practitioner employed as the football (i.e., soccer) academy psychologist, Harwood observed a lack of any intentional structure to assist players with understanding and meeting the known psychosocial demands of youth football, as well as harnessing qualities that would be key to their personal development beyond football. His 5Cs framework focused on desired psychosocial characteristics that were grounded in social psychological theories (e.g., achievement goal theory; Nicholls, 1989) with attention to self-regulatory and interpersonal behavior congruent with meeting sport-based demands (i.e., commitment, communication, concentration, control, and confidence). His initial field-based intervention studies targeted the role of the coach as the vehicle for influencing young athletes’ psychosocial development through bespoke coach education (Harwood, 2008; Harwood et al., 2015). These studies focused on influencing perceptions of coaching efficacy and players’ psychosocial behavior through the application of intentional coach-to-player education, and coach behavior and session management strategies (e.g., modeling, autonomy-support, peer-to-peer support). With accessible and user-friendly terminology to facilitate ‘buy in’ from stakeholders (Gould et al., 1999), this framework has also been implemented as a program within elite English football academies to unite parents, coaches, and interdisciplinary team members (see Steptoe et al., 2019) in order to provide consistent and cohesive messaging around young players’ needs and how they are developing from a psychosocial perspective. To that end, while frameworks such as 5Cs can be applied more narrowly to influence coaches’ contextual behaviors and actions (e.g., Bean et al., 2018), it is important to consider how other social agents within the same system (e.g., parents) can strategically impact young athletes’ developmental experiences (e.g., Holt et al., 2017; Pierce et al., 2017).

Role of parents in supporting young athlete’s psychosocial development

Over the last five decades, researchers have positioned parents as having an important role and influence on young athletes’ experiences and development in youth sport (e.g., Dorsch et al., 2021; Harwood et al., 2019). The role of a sport parent can be defined through their socialization and involvement, whether it be in direct (e.g., signing their child up for sport, coaching) or supportive roles (e.g., supplying transportation, providing encouragement; Evans et al., 2016; Knight et al., 2016). The type of parental involvement may change concerning what their child needs in different contexts and at different times (e.g., Knight, Little, et al., 2016; Knight & Holt, 2014). To date, little PYD-based research has investigated the role and influence of parents in terms of intentional support for their child’s psychosocial development within and beyond sport (see Harwood et al., 2019). This is somewhat surprising considering that studies have indirectly highlighted how some parents engage in parent-child discussions about life skills development (e.g., at dinnertime, in the car ride home) to reinforce what life skills were learned during programs (Hodge et al., 2017). Parents have also discussed how their use of ‘teachable moments’ helped their child to experience benefits from their sport participation, by reinforcing psychosocial competencies specific to what they believed was being developed (e.g., being a team player at home and in sport; Neely & Holt, 2014). In their longitudinal exploration of parental behaviors to support psychological skills and characteristic development in elite youth tennis players, Dohme et al. (2021) identified that parents valued psychological development through their child’s sport participation but felt skeptical and unsure of their intentional efforts in aiding such development (e.g., due to perceptions of inability to provide adequate support).

Harwood et al. (2019) recently reviewed and critiqued the youth sport scholarship that relates to parental involvement on the experiences and psychosocial development of young athletes. They positively observed how sport-based PYD intervention studies situate parental involvement as having a potential role to play in young athletes’ psychosocial development interventions (Camiré et al., 2013; Hodge et al., 2017). However, with parents not being directly involved in any intervention to date, Harwood and colleagues (2019) emphasized that “the literature falls short of illustrating how parents can intentionally and proactively contribute to their child’s psychosocial development” (p. 69). They called for organizations and clubs to engage parents more explicitly in the psychosocial development process as valuable facilitators of work led by the coach, and for researchers to investigate this process.

The present study

In order to advance this area of research, the current study was located in an elite English youth football academy that has intentionally integrated the 5Cs framework into its club operations, culture, and player development systems. This enabled an investigation of parents who, similar to coaches in the aforementioned studies (e.g., Harwood, 2008; Harwood et al., 2015), had become familiarized with the 5Cs through direct education and exposure to practices and strategies within the academy. As stakeholders and actors within this academy system, the purpose of this study was to explore parents’ interpretations of their roles and experiences in supporting their child’s psychosocial development. In view of their education and experiences at the academy, two research questions underpinned this purpose: (a) What strategies do parents use within and outside of football to facilitate development of each of the 5Cs, and (b) What are the barriers parents face to developing the 5Cs within this context?

Method

Research approach and philosophical assumptions

The current study adopted a qualitative approach, which focuses on the ways people interpret and make sense of their experiences (Smith & Sparkes, 2016). Specifically, a generic approach to qualitative inquiry was used as this was considered the most appropriate to address the broad, exploratory, and differing nature of the research questions (i.e., strategies used, perceived barriers, recommendations). Consistent with this approach, the current study was underpinned by interpretivism, which is based on a relativist ontology (i.e., multiple socially constructed realities exist) and a constructivist epistemology (i.e., knowledge is co-constructed and subjective). As a result, knowledge accumulation is influenced by dynamic interactions between contexts and individuals over time (Denzin & Lincoln, 2018). Through this approach, we sought to co-construct an in-depth understanding of the parents’ experiences of supporting their child’s psychosocial development within an elite football academy, with a specific focus on the strategies parents used, and the perceived barriers associated with their role in this process.

Research context: elite football academy

The current study was conducted within a professional English premier league football academy with Category 1 status (Elite Player Performance Plan; EPPP, 2011). This status is awarded by the Premier League to youth academies who provide and evidence the highest level of facilities, staff and programming for football development aligned with requisite school education provision. Youth players in such programs typically train four evenings per week in conjunction with weekend matches across a 9-month season. EPPP mandate a psychology program of age-appropriate support for players, parents, and coaches. In this premier league academy, the program is intentionally designed around the 5Cs framework (see Harwood & Anderson, 2015), and offers programming to young athletes in two phases: the foundation phase (8–11 years) and the youth development phase (12–16 years). The academy collaborated with the third and fourth authors to embed the 5Cs framework as an education and support program into their existing programming in 2012. Consequently, the psychosocial characteristics were integrated within the academy by sport psychologists and included coach, athlete, and parent education and training. Sport psychologists have progressively supported academy parents through educational materials and since 2014 a revolving curriculum of 1-h monthly workshops on each of the Cs have guided parental involvement in supporting their child’s awareness and development of these qualities. Tailored to each development phase, these workshops have been supplemented by termly 5Cs newsletters to parents and novel tasks such as 5 C behavior bingo cards for pitch-side observations of the team. Such activities aimed to raise awareness and attention in parents, with encouragement to reinforce their son for positive 5 C behavior. Alongside integrated education, 5Cs posters around the academy facilities, picturing first team professional players as behavioral role-models, have served as nudging and sensitizing tools for both the athletes and parents. Coaches are expected to intentionally foster athletes’ psychosocial development, specifically through the 5Cs framework (Harwood & Anderson, 2015), with existing and new coaches receiving ongoing support from the sport psychology team to maximize a psychosocial return on their coaching sessions.

The 5Cs were also embedded within the academy’s player evaluation protocol of incoming and existing players, so that coaches and academy staff consider an athletes’ psychosocial strengths beyond merely their physical competencies. Within the foundation phase, academy staff focus on developing the young athletes’ awareness of the 5 C standards (i.e., behavior to strive for as an athlete and teammate) and in providing opportunities to demonstrate their development of the 5Cs in training and matches. Within the youth development phase, the focus shifts to an enhanced understanding of the 5Cs so they can learn how to adapt to stressful and challenging situations in and beyond the academy, as well as value different ways to evaluate their performance in training and competition.

The researchers

The first author is a White woman who was visiting the United Kingdom (UK) on an international graduate scholarship to conduct the current study, and the second author is a White man who was completing his post-doctoral research in the UK. Both authors were experienced qualitative researchers and had previously conducted qualitative data collection within elite academy football clubs (i.e., were familiar with the research environment, culture, and working practices). The third and fourth authors are both White men and health care professional council (HCPC) registered sport and exercise psychologists, and were involved in the design of the current study and analysis. The third and fourth authors have researched and consulted with youth athletes in the UK for 12 and 28 years, respectively.

Participants

In order to address the research questions, parents were purposefully recruited using criterion-based sampling (Patton, 2014) from the academy, with a total of 30 participants (13 mothers, 17 fathers) between 29 and 74 years of age (M = 44.8; SD = 8.5) involved in one of six focus groups. Specifically, the inclusion criteria for the study involved parents or guardians who had a child registered at the football academy who participated in either the foundation (i.e., aged 8–11 years) or youth development phase (i.e., aged 12–16 years). The 13 parents in the foundation phase reported an average of 4.6 years as a sport parent (SD = 2.6) and an average of 1.7 years within the academy at the time of the study (SD = 1.8). Conversely, the 17 parents within the youth development phase reported an average of 12 years as a sport parent (SD = 6.1) and an average of 4.9 years within the academy at the time of the study (SD = 3.0).

Procedure

Following institutional ethical approval for the study, recruitment was initiated through collaboration with the third author (i.e., lead sport psychologist at the football academy) and the Academy Director. Those parents who met the selection criteria were emailed an information letter and a formal recruitment letter (i.e., including the lead researcher’s contact information, explanation of the study’s purpose). Parents who demonstrated interest contacted the first author directly. All parents signed consent forms before data collection and were informed of their right to confidentiality, anonymity, and freedom to withdraw from the study at any time. Demographic information was collected along with informed consent (e.g., age, years at the academy). At the end of the 2018 season, six focus groups were conducted on the academy premises, including one with foundation phase parents, two with youth development phase parents, and three with parents from both phases due to overlap of scheduled training sessions. It is important to note that mixed phase focus groups were used due to parent availability but also enabled parents from the youth development phase to share lessons learned over time at the academy as well as providing opportunities to compare which strategies were used across phases.

Data collection

Focus groups were selected for the current study as this type of interview provided opportunities for interaction and dialogue between participants (Smith & Sparkes, 2016). All focus groups were conducted and moderated by the first and second authors during scheduled training sessions. One focus group guide was developed for the semi-structured focus groups based on a review of sport parent literature (e.g., Knight et al., 2018) combined with the authors’ understanding of the 5Cs framework (Harwood, 2008; Harwood & Anderson, 2015) and its integration within the academy (e.g., coaching support; intentional parent education provision). The key topics covered in the focus groups included: current understanding of the 5Cs (e.g., How has the academy (coaches; sport psychology team) influenced your understanding of the 5Cs?); strategies used to support their child’s development of the 5Cs (e.g., How have these strategies to develop commitment changed at different stages of your child’s football career?); perceived barriers (e.g., What are some barriers you face in developing your child’s confidence?); and recommendations (e.g., How could the academy help you to develop your child’s commitment?). Subsequent questions and probes served to stimulate discussions around the intentional nature of the shared strategies to align with the research purpose. Closing questions allowed the moderators to check if parents were able to share all of their experiences regarding their child’s 5Cs development. All focus groups were audio-recorded, lasting between 47 and 81 min (M = 66.4 min), and transcribed verbatim, resulting in 138 typed single-spaced pages of transcripts.

Data analysis

Data was analyzed using reflexive thematic analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2019). Following the completion of data collection, the first author familiarized herself with the data by transcribing the focus groups verbatim and then reading and re-reading the transcripts. Working through one focus group transcript at a time, the first author then inductively identified codes from the data set that related to (a) how parents constructed their role based on the curriculum of the 5Cs (i.e., process), and (b) what the parents were doing to help their child develop the 5Cs in and beyond the academy across key developmental stages (i.e., strategies) at a semantic level. The software NVivo 11 was used to assist in the management and analysis of the data by helping to make comparisons between transcripts. At this point, the first author shared the codes with the second author, and they engaged in discussions to reflect, question, and explore the codes at a latent level (i.e., identifying the underlying meaning of the parents’ constructed roles and strategies). The academy phase was then identified in the coded data to explore if different strategies were shared by parents in the foundation phase (e.g., P7-F) and youth development phase (e.g., P4-YD). After these discussions, theme development began by ordering the codes into lower-order (e.g., implement daily routines) and higher-order (e.g., set expectations for child) themes to explain patterns and meanings of the parents’ perceptions and experiences. The fourth author was then included in the analysis process, acting as a ‘critical friend’ (Smith & McGannon, 2018) to help refine the identified themes, posing reflective questions to help name and define the themes.

Following the naming of themes, the first author then examined how the lower-order themes aligned with the 5Cs and differed across the developmental phases. To account for the inherent crossover between the 5Cs (Harwood, 2008), the authors coded the strategy with the C that the parents initially intended to focus on. At this point, the 5Cs framework was included for further deductive analysis to assess for alignment between the identified themes and each of the 5Cs definitions. A document was created to align the themes with each C and was critically discussed among the authors. Lastly, a draft of the findings was written, reflected upon, and revised as the authors collaborated to deepen their interpretations, with the central objective of answering the research questions.

Quality criteria

In line with our interpretivist position, a ‘relativist’ approach can be used to judge the quality of the current study (Sparkes & Smith, 2014). The relativist approach involves formulating a list of characteristics for a particular study rather than a universal set of criteria, which can be used to evaluate any form of qualitative research (Sparkes & Smith, 2014). Taking this into consideration, the following open-ended criteria draws from existing literature (e.g., Smith & McGannon, 2018) and can be used as a starting point for judging this study. Specifically, the criteria below were selected based on the purpose of the current study and methodological approach used (see above). First, worthiness of the topic was captured within the introduction by highlighting the relative absence of studies exploring parents’ interpretations of their experiences of supporting young athletes’ psychosocial development, particularly in elite youth sport contexts. Second, rigor was demonstrated by recruiting a diverse range of parents (i.e., age, gender, experience, academy phase) and conducting in-depth focus groups, which generated rich and insightful data. In addition, reflexivity was demonstrated by the first author by keeping detailed notes and engaging in frequent discussions and critical reflection with the second and fourth authors (i.e., ‘critical friends’; Smith & McGannon, 2018). Furthermore, the third and fourth authors had been embedded within the academy for 6 years and provided valuable insights regarding the research context throughout the research process. These steps were crucial in representing data complexity and providing detailed interpretive insights. Finally, methodological coherence was demonstrated through clear and transparent reporting of our philosophical position (i.e., interpretivism), methodological approach, data collection methods (i.e., semi-structured focus groups), and data analysis process (i.e., reflexive thematic analysis).

Results

The results are organized into two sections. First, strategies discussed by parents that were used in supporting their child’s 5Cs development are presented (see Table 1). Second, barriers that were perceived as hindering or impeding parents’ support are described and ensuing recommendations for the development of their child’s 5Cs are presented.

Table 1. Parental strategies for supporting their child’s 5Cs development.

	Commitment	Communication	Concentration	Control	Confidence
Providing encouragement and tailoring feedback		Using technology to share feedback	Using cues during matches to regain their focus		Providing positive affirmations and praise to child and teammates
					Reminding child of previous successes through examples and videos
Establishing and sharing expectations with their child	Investing in their academy development	Engaging in discussions during family meals	Implementing daily routines
	Devoting equal effort for their education as their football		Limiting use of their technology at home and pre-academy
Creating an autonomy-supportive environment	Encouraging child to make decisions	Practicing role-playing scenarios at home to consider other’s perspectives	Giving child space post-match to reflect on their performance		Using mistakes for learning opportunities
	Encouraging child to take responsibility for their football kit	Encouraging child to set goals for stronger communication at the academy	Refraining from coaching or distracting child on the sidelines		Encouraging child to speak for themselves with coaches and other adults
					Timing the delivery of their feedback
Encouraging participation in activities beyond the academy		Engaging in activities at school	Engaging in activities at home to switch off		Engaging in other sports and extracurricular activities
Understanding football and the nature of the academy		Teaching how they can communicate through their body language	Creating an optimal pre-match state and environment	Helping child understand the nature of physical development	Teaching extended family members about the academy’s philosophy
			Ensuring child has proper hydration, nourishment, and sleep		Rationalizing the demands of the sport through appraisals
			Completing pre-match preparatory tasks for child		Remaining consistent with the coaches’ feedback

Strategies to support child’s 5Cs development

To support their child’s development of the 5Cs, five higher-order strategies were developed: (a) providing encouragement and tailoring feedback, (b) establishing and sharing expectations with their child, (c) creating an autonomy-supportive environment, (d) encouraging participation activities outside of the academy, and (e) understanding football and nature of the academy. For each of the higher-order strategies, lower-order strategies were developed regarding how the parents targeted each of the 5Cs (see Table 1).

Providing encouragement and tailoring feedback

Parents discussed how by providing encouragement and tailoring their feedback to their child’s needs and emotional states, they helped to support their psychosocial development. Strategies were discussed concerning developing their child’s communication (using technology to share feedback), concentration (using cues during matches to regain their focus), and confidence (providing positive affirmations and praise to child and teammates; reminding child of previous successes through examples and videos). For example, parents within the youth development phase discussed using technology to share feedback with their child post-matches helped to facilitate the development of their communication skills. One parent identified that during times of frustration it was helpful to text her son to ask when he was ready to talk rather than initiating the conversation face to face:

He’ll go upstairs to his room; I don’t want him to lock himself away, so instead of pushing him, I will say [imitating texting], ‘Let me know what it is, whenever you’re ready to talk.’ Then he’ll text me and I’ll go up to his room and we will chat. (P25-YD)

The online communication platform within the academy (Hudl, 2021) was also used by parents to share feedback and encourage reflection regarding their child’s communication and other 5Cs:

He played well yesterday; they took him off at 70 minutes, but he had a look on his face because he was taken off. His coach went to give him a high five and he walks straight past him. At the car, I said to him: ‘I am disappointed.’ ‘But I played well?’ ‘I know, but that [communication behavior] at the end—I’ll show you on Hudl because it will be on there.’ He will look at it and think ‘Yeah, that is not good’. I think the video is brilliant, to be able to go over some of those things. (P10-F)

Parents also used technology to develop their child’s confidence by reminding their child of previous success through examples and videos. By sharing their feedback with examples and videos, the parents believed they supported their child’s confidence and provided them with moments to refer to in instances of uncertainty. For instance, parents discussed creating a “highlight reel” from videos on the Hudl platform of successful performances:

Every game he’s played I’ve done the highlights and I do it with him. So, every time that he is feeling a bit down and thinking, ‘Oh maybe I am not that good,’ I put it on the telly, the big screen, and it is highlight after highlight, the good things that he’s done. (P8-F)

Establishing and sharing expectations with their child

Parents discussed various expectations they established and shared with their child that were perceived as helpful for their positive development. Strategies were shared specific to developing their child’s commitment (investing in their academy development; devoting equal effort to their education as their football), communication (engaging in discussions during family meals), and concentration (implementing daily routines; limiting the use of their technology at home and pre-academy). For example, parents established expectations for devoting equal effort for their education as their football, as it was understood that by balancing one’s investment across their different commitments, their child would recognize the importance of fulfilling their commitments and not spread themselves thin. As participating in the academy requires a large commitment from their child, parents encouraged preparing accordingly and taking advantage of free time while at the academy to uphold this expectation: “When they start to do the day release [from school] and they have the two hours [for schoolwork], he’d come home and be tired from playing football. I tried to get him to make use of those two hours” (P19-YD).

In relation to developing their child’s communication, parents shared expectations for engaging in discussions during family meals. The parents encouraged their child to improve their communication skills through practice (e.g., answering questions, listening to others), and encouraged them to keep trying when quiet while ensuring the interactions felt natural:

We have an evening mealtime; we all sit down as a family and there is no technology allowed and we talk about what has gone on in the day. We have that conversation like, ‘How has your day been? Tell me about what you’ve been doing?’ And the one-word answers, I won’t accept that. It’s like, ‘No, I want to know more about your day.’ (P14-F)

Creating an autonomy-supportive environment

Parents discussed how they supported their child’s development of all the 5Cs by creating an autonomy-supportive environment that empowered their child to make their own decisions and solve problems independently. Strategies were shared specific to developing their child’s commitment (encouraging child to make decisions; encouraging child to take responsibility for their football kit), communication (practicing role-playing scenarios at home to consider other’s perspectives; encouraging child to set goals for stronger communication at the academy), concentration (giving child space post-match to reflect on their performance; refraining from coaching or distracting child on the sidelines), and confidence (using mistakes for learning opportunities; encouraging child to speak for themselves with coaches and other adults; timing the delivery of their feedback).

Regarding their child’s communication development, parents within the foundation phase discussed practicing role-playing scenarios at home to consider other’s perspectives with their child to help empower him in solving problems that could occur on the pitch. One parent discussed practicing communicating in different scenarios while passing the ball at home:

We play in the garden and say different things about how you could communicate because one of his targets is communication. Like, ‘What could’ve you said there? What can you say to your teammates to help them understand what you’ll do next?’ (P16-F)

It was anticipated that by practicing communication in a safe space at home, where their child could make mistakes and learn, they could then become stronger communicators at the academy and become more adept in problem solving with this role-playing practice. Similarly, parents asked their children to practice communicating by helping siblings with their homework to consider how there may be different ways to teach or give feedback.

To support their children’s confidence, parents described the importance of facilitating their independence, by encouraging their child to speak for themselves with coaches and other adults. For example, one parent explained how it was her son’s responsibility to let the coach know when they had conflicting schedules with the academy:

If [he] has got something [else] going on, it is not up to me to tell his coach… ‘Just tell him that you’ve got a basketball tournament on Saturday.’ And he goes, ‘You tell him.’ And I go, ‘No! You tell him because it’s not about me, he’s not my coach.’ He has gotten more confident in doing that. (P7-F)

This strategy was also utilized by parents beyond the academy at restaurants and shops:

He has been told by his coach that he needs to start building up his confidence. He has confidence [talking] with other people but if he doesn’t know anyone, he is a bit shy. I make him go into the shop now and he buys his own stuff. If he wants a drink or a snack before football, he has to go in there. Yesterday I said to him, ‘Go in there and go get your own stuff… It [takes] confidence to speak to people… If you go out on your own and you’re speaking to other people, then you can take it on the pitch.’ (P11-YD)

Encouraging their children to speak for themselves and have interactions without their parents leading the conversation was thought to help them develop confidence that could then be transferred to being more confident at the academy. Additionally, to develop their child’s confidence, parents described intentionally timing the delivery of their feedback, so they could accommodate their child’s current emotional state. While some parents knew if their child wanted to talk “within the first 30 seconds” (P1-YD) after practices or matches, others recognized how their attempts to offer feedback changed over time. Through trial and error, parents realized that when they timed their feedback accordingly, they could engage in more reflective conversations with their child and better support their confidence: “When they were younger, we tried to push them into telling us what happened, and it always backfired. It took us a while to get there, but now we’re more laid back about it and wait for them to talk” (P4-YD).

Encouraging participation in activities beyond the academy

Parents encouraged their child to participate in activities beyond the academy as it was perceived that by developing their 5Cs in contexts beyond the academy their child would enhance their performance on the football pitch. Strategies were shared for developing their child’s communication (engaging in activities at school), concentration (engaging in activities at home to switch off), and confidence (engaging in other sports and extracurricular activities). For instance, parents discussed encouraging their child to engage in activities at school to develop their communication. One parent described how his son benefited from public speaking activities at school to practice communicating with others:

His school really helps; he does a lot of public speaking and things like that. We’ve been trying to develop his captaincy-based skills, working on his leadership and how to talk properly. This year he has been captain quite a few times, which [the coaches] are trying to push. I’ve seen those skills start to come out from a communication point of view… We were watching him the other week [at school] stand up in front of a group of 500 people and talk, which I could probably not do, I was quite impressed. It’s trying to develop that style of [communicating] into his football game. (P10-F)

Following their participation in different activities and programs, parents discussed how they could converse with their child on how similar techniques and skills could enhance their performance at the academy.

In relation to developing their concentration, parents discussed encouraging their child to engage in other activities, beyond football, to “switch off” and practice changing their focus. For example, parents discussed how playing video games, for a reasonable amount of time, could teach them about the importance of shifting their focus, so when their full attention is needed at football, they would feel restored:

I think switching off is key. Because you have a 45-minutes to an hour of driving to and back and then two hours training after school, so sometimes even that Fortnite video game is sort of a remedy. All they know for the whole week is [the academy], a big chunk is taken up by this; they don’t even get to see their friends… You may think that they’re losing concentration [gaming], but they’re not. They’re recharging now. (P8-F)

This participant felt that if parents are too controlling in terms of what their child does during free time, they may lose their passion for football and show up distracted. Succeeding a discussion on how some children have benefited from engaging in other activities beyond the academy, one parent reflected on how providing opportunities for her child to develop or refine his confidence in contexts beyond the academy would likewise help his confidence in football:

He sort of likes to dance. We are thinking of enrolling him in street dance or something to do with drama because he can get comical—something like that to bring that out, to be confident in standing in front of other people. I think maybe something like that might help his confidence. (P23-F)

Understanding football and the nature of the academy

Participants believed that it was important for parents to have a general understanding of the sport and the nature of the academy to feel capable of supporting their child’s development of the 5Cs. This understanding was curated by educating themselves on football and the structure of the academy (e.g., philosophy, culture, rules), providing practical and logistical support, watching practices and matches when possible, and engaging with the coaches and academy staff. As one parent shared, this was similar to intentionally being involved in their child’s education:

When I hear parents sometimes say, ‘I’m going to take a back step because he’s in the academy and the coaches know more,’ I think it’s just like school. If your child comes home from school and you don’t open the book, but you expect him to get A’s, that’s not going to happen. But if you open the bag and see he has homework and say ‘Let’s talk about it’—that’s how I see the academy. I watch every game. (P8-F)

Strategies were discussed in relation to supporting their child’s communication (teaching how they can communicate through their body language), concentration (creating an optimal pre-match state and environment; ensuring child has proper hydration, nourishment, and sleep; completing pre-match preparatory tasks for child), control (helping child understand the nature of physical development), and confidence (teaching extended family members about the academy’s philosophy; rationalizing the demands of the sport through appraisals; remaining consistent with the coaches’ feedback). For instance, parents within the foundation phase recognized the importance of teaching their extended family members about the academy’s philosophy to support their child’s confidence, as their young sons were new to the academy. Without an understanding of the academy’s philosophy, which focused on the athletes’ development and effort rather than solely focusing on winning, family members could negatively affect their child’s confidence if their feedback was orientated around winning and/or scoring. One parent described how participating in the 5Cs parent workshops helped him to educate others on what was deemed appropriate feedback within the academy:

We thought as a whole family it [5Cs workshop] has been really helpful for us and the rest of the family, like Nana and Grandad. Because the first thing they’ll ask is, ‘Did you win? Did you score?’ Most of the time I’ve stopped them from asking those questions because it’s not important. Instead, ask and talk about if he’s played well tonight. (P10-F)

Barriers and recommendations

Beyond strategies to support their child’s 5Cs development, parents highlighted a lack of (a) communication with the coaches and (b) an understanding of their role as an academy parent as barriers that impeded their efforts in supporting their child’s development of the 5Cs. Recommendations were provided for how these two barriers could be mitigated in the future.

First, parents perceived that a lack of coach-parent communication was a barrier to supporting their child’s 5Cs development, as they could misunderstand the coaches’ intentions and provide conflicting feedback. For instance, parents described frustrations of not knowing their child’s performance goals and expectations, set by the coaches, until the practice or match had finished:

You know they are trying to make a complete player, but they don’t let you know what is going on in the thought process. If they said, ‘For this season your son is going to be playing right-back, left-back, and left-wing, and what we are trying to develop is this, this, and this.’ So, when he is getting knocked off being a right-back because he is a forward then I’d go, ‘It is developing you as an all-round player. Look at the players today, you have to be able to do everything.’ You could have that conversation. (P5-YD)

It was recognized that by improving parent-coach communication, new academy parents may have enhanced access to information they require to support their child’s 5Cs development.

Second, in addition to not having enough performance-based information from the coaches to support their child’s 5Cs development, parents also discussed having limited information or access to resources about their role as an academy parent besides the practical and logistical support that they provided. This lack of understanding led to frustration particularly for parents in the foundation phase who are transitioning from the culture of a grassroots football team to a more organized elite academy: “There is a frustration for parents in the younger age groups when they are coming in because there is that unknown” (P24-YD).

To enhance efforts of communication and support new academy parents and those who have a child in the foundation phase, it was recommended to involve the parents in the academy process from the onset of their child’s participation. As affirmed by one parent in the youth development phase, “Don’t leave them [parents] in the dark. We’ve been in the dark for years and you only find out when you push for the answers, and you really shouldn’t have to do that” (P5-YD). To involve parents in the process, it was suggested that the coaches share the child’s 5Cs profiles with their parents. These profiles are created by the coaching staff to help athletes understand, maintain, and strengthen specific psychosocial behaviors based on the coaches’ observations. Additionally, parents recommended that the coaches engage in informal conversations about their child’s development, such as after a match or through email rather than waiting for a scheduled, formal review 6 months into a season. Acquiring specific information from the coaches could help the parents support their child’s 5Cs development in and beyond the academy:

What we need as parents to support our child’s development and performance that can help them here [at the academy] and even at home and school is more information from coaches. If we don’t get that feedback from the coaches, we won’t be able to know what to do and we won’t be able to help our child adequately. As soon as we get that proper information then we will be able to help our child and also help the coaches. (P27-F)

Ultimately, becoming more aware of what their child is doing, or expected to do, while at the academy through enhanced communication with the coaches could help parents protect their child’s confidence and intentionally work on 5Cs which may need improvement: “If they told us what they need to work on you could work on it. At home, or discuss it, or put little YouTube videos on, or do anything just to help him with something. But we don’t know” (P16-F).

To enhance the understanding of their child’s developmental needs, it was recommended to introduce parents from older phases to new academy parents to build connections and share strategies for supporting their children’s 5Cs development. As said by a foundation phase parent: “We’re new to the academy, more familiar with grassroots… It’s not an individual sport; it’s a team game, you’re only as strong as the weakest link. The more information we have as parents the better we can support our kids” (P14-F). The parents believed that by building a community of academy parents, there may be fewer barriers or frustrations for those new to the academy who are beginning this process with their child. For instance, it was suggested that more experienced academy parents could guide newer parents to the available resources at the academy for supporting their child’s development, including participating in the 5Cs parent workshops and meeting with the academy’s sport psychologists.

Discussion

The present study explored parents’ interpretations of their roles and experiences of supporting their child’s psychosocial development within and beyond an elite football academy. A unique feature and strength of the study is that the academy had integrated a program designed around the 5Cs framework with educational workshops to inform and align parents to the psychosocial focus of the academy. The findings illustrated that parents used multiple practical strategies to support their child’s 5Cs development within and beyond football, which evolved as their child aged and matured. The parents also discussed barriers they perceived as hindering their ability to support their child’s 5Cs and accompanying strategies to mitigate these challenges in the future. Extending our empirical understanding beyond the nature of coaches’ intentional efforts to support athletes’ psychosocial development (e.g., Bean et al., 2018), this study reveals how parents can intentionally create opportunities to support their child’s development and go beyond reactive actions (Dohme et al., 2021; Fraser-Thomas et al., 2005; Neely & Holt, 2014) as aligned and integrated stakeholders.

By providing encouragement and tailored feedback, the parents discussed strategies that provided an individualized approach for their child’s developmental needs. While some of the parents provided feedback during competition, they primarily discussed offering encouragement and feedback within private settings, such as at home or in the car to and from football (e.g., Knight et al., 2016). The feedback discussed was mainly praising, constructive, and positive (Knight et al., 2016), which reflect parental behaviors shown to positively relate to young footballers’ perceived life skills development (Mossman & Cronin, 2019). The parents’ use of positive affirmations, cues, and feedback coupled with video footage provides insights into how sport parents can be resourceful in individualizing their psychosocial support and the potential for using this strategy in tandem with coaches and practitioners. For example, young elite footballers have found video feedback to be effective when offered individually from coaches rather than in a team setting; however, it can be logistically challenging to only hold individual video sessions (see Middlemas & Harwood, 2018). Parents of elite young tennis players have discussed similar efforts of using televised competitions and elite players as role model examples to encourage their child to reflect on their motivation and performance (Dohme et al., 2021). As exemplified in this study, parents may be able to address this need by providing individualized video feedback at home that considers their child’s developmental needs.

Moreover, the parents discussed three higher-order strategies that considered their child’s individual needs while also recognizing the interactions between stakeholders and contexts that their child experiences. By establishing and sharing expectations with their child, the parents set boundaries within the home and around their child’s school and football participation with an emphasis on strengthening their 5Cs. As their expectations did not focus on winning, the parents may have been perceived by their child as helpful for dealing with difficulties often experienced by elite young athletes (e.g., external pressures and expectations; Elliott et al., 2018). Similarly, by creating an autonomy-supportive environment, the parents set boundaries for home, sport, and school that were perceived to foster their child’s autonomy. Conceptualized from self-determination theory (Ryan & Deci, 2000), autonomy-supportive parenting styles have been associated with positive outcomes for young athletes, including fostering decision-making, problem-solving, initiative, and self-regulation (e.g., Pynn et al., 2019). The elite tennis parents in Dohme et al. (2021) study also discussed the importance of supporting their child to make decisions, or “go the extra mile”, particularly when they were intrinsically motivated to improve their performance in and beyond sport. This study contributes to our limited understanding of how parents engage in autonomy-supportive parenting styles (Holt et al., 2021; Pynn et al., 2019), such as by engaging in role-playing scenarios at home to strengthen their child’s communication in football and enhance their awareness for problem-solving. By encouraging participation in activities beyond the academy, the parents perceived they were providing their child with opportunities to develop, refine, and practice their 5Cs in multiple contexts, which in turn would strengthen their 5Cs at the academy. Within sport, it is suggested that the more that young athletes develop psychosocial skills, the more likely they are to develop the ability to transfer their skills to other contexts (Pierce et al., 2017). If parents can forge links with external assets in their child’s lives (e.g., coaches, teachers, community members), they can provide their child with opportunities for PYD across the contexts in which they occupy (Holt et al., 2017; Pierce et al., 2017).

Furthermore, by understanding football and the nature of the academy, the parents considered how the broader sport culture and organizational structures within the academy could impact their child’s 5Cs development. While the academy staff explicitly appraise and support players based on the 5Cs framework, and give balanced consideration to psychosocial and physical competencies, the parents discussed how it took time for them, and for extended family members, to accept that the focus was on long-term player development and not on winning or goal scoring. This shift in expectations resonates with findings from Harwood et al. (2010) study whereby ‘foundation phase’ parents within an elite football academy resisted a focus on player development over winning, believing that winning matches was the best way to develop their son’s confidence. When sport parents display behaviors that diverge from the coaches’ philosophy, such as expecting wins, it can cause tension within the parent-coach relationship and put additional pressure and stress on their child (Preston et al., 2021). Once the parents accepted the academy culture, they felt more capable to adapt their involvement to support their child’s 5Cs development, particularly their confidence.

With the academy program intentionally designed around the 5Cs framework, many parents demonstrated a heightened awareness of how they could intentionally and proactively support their child’s psychosocial development. However, even those parents who had not formally participated in the academy curriculum also described strategies they felt targeted each of the 5Cs. This may have stemmed from parents becoming familiarized with the 5Cs framework from other environmental strategies (i.e., 5Cs newsletters to parents; 5Cs posters of professional players located around the academy buildings; 5 C behavior bingo cards for pitch-side observations) implemented by the academy’s sport psychology team.

As such, an elevated sense of confidence in parents’ understanding of their roles emerged that was facilitated by having greater social integration into the working operations and delivery processes of the framework. Indeed, parents acknowledged moving beyond a reliance on teachable moments (Neely & Holt, 2014) to being more proactive and intentional in tailoring support to their child. For instance, some parents reactively sought the help of sport psychologists when they noticed their child had reoccurring difficulties with their 5Cs (e.g., emotional control), and then intentionally encouraged their child to use this resource for future issues. The same parents encouraged others to proactively seek help from the sport psychologists, especially with a younger child struggling to adapt to the elite academy context. Parents also acknowledged the importance of being strategic when timing their conversations with their child around their 5Cs. The notion of timing and tailoring feedback is crucial for positively supporting young athletes' psychosocial development (e.g., Knight et al., 2016). By understanding when it was best to discuss their child’s 5Cs within football (e.g., after losing a match) and beyond (e.g., failing an exam), the parents believed they could engage in meaningful conversations to promote their child’s psychosocial development. Additionally, some parents intentionally let their child initiate the conversation when they felt ready to talk (i.e., in person or through texting), enabling their child toward feelings of autonomy (Holt et al., 2021).

Critical implications and considerations

The benefits of studying parents sensitized to the 5Cs and the academy’s espoused values around psychosocial development did not end in merely advancing an understanding of parental strategies. It enabled a sizeable critique to be shared by parents for reducing barriers and further improving parental engagement and academy practices regarding their support roles. Parents discussed how a lack of communication with coaches was a barrier that, at times, impeded their ability to support their child’s 5Cs development. Limited access to information, regularity, and consistency of communication with coaches is a prevalent stressor for football parents, especially those new to an elite program (see Harwood et al., 2010), and such issues were reinforced by parents in this study. Parents expressed the desire for understanding what the coaches’ expectations were for their child in terms of psychosocial goals such that they could work better in tandem with coaches and not miss opportunities for reinforcement in other contexts. Importantly, such individualized collaboration and congruence between parents’ and coaches’ strategies would likely enhance a young athlete’s psychosocial qualities across contexts (Bowley et al., 2018). When parents and coaches develop open and honest relationships, it can enhance the quality of involvement in their child’s sport and increase their child’s trust in their coaches (Knight & Holt, 2014). Further, strengthening the parent-coach relationship may also help clarify parents’ roles within the program, and attenuate any weak or inconsistent lines of communication that can lead to confusion, misinterpretation, and pressure.

The parents’ experiences offered a sense to the research team that despite substantial attempts to integrate parents into the academy culture and promote knowledge and understanding of the 5Cs, academy operations fell short of collaborating with parents fully around matters of individual player development. In the absence of parents being so proximal to player development responsibilities, greater benefit could be gained by coaches selectively attending parent education meetings (i.e., delivered by psychology staff) or coaches leading age-group level 5Cs support meetings for parents in order to encourage specific roles and developmental strategies. Taking a temporal approach could also be of value here whereby the academy targets specific periods where congruent messaging between parent and coach is critical (e.g., start of the first season at the academy, the transition between foundation phase to youth development phase—11–12 years old). Creating a mentoring system or support network between older academy parents and those newer to the academy pathway to share experiences and advice (Strachan et al., 2021) would also potentially enhance parental engagement and allow parents to feel more integrated.

Further, while the academy’s parent education program promoted appropriate behavioral strategies to parents (e.g., a 5Cs parent behavior journal) to facilitate the quality of parental involvement (Tamminen et al., 2020), the academy fell short of implementing a specific behavior change intervention or mandatory individualized support. Mindful of Tamminen and colleagues’ (2020) and Burke and colleagues’ (2021) pertinent remarks around future parental interventions being driven by behavior change strategies and behavior change theories, we see the value from this study that may come from the academy offering more individualized support to families. However, the delivery of such work to parents in field-settings should ideally come from a position of proactively optimizing parents’ individual strengths and opportunities, and avoid any connotation of a traditional group-based design targeting negative behavior.

Future research directions

While we believe that this study makes a worthy contribution to satiating a gap amongst the sport parenting, talent development, and PYD literatures (Harwood et al., 2019), there remain a number of future directions to consider in this area. First, this study was situated within an elite football academy program in a Westernized culture that incorporated sport psychologists employed to integrate a psychosocial framework. How parenting experiences and strategies would differ within individual youth sport settings where there is potentially a much closer, transactional parent-coach relationship (i.e., parent selects coach and pays coach) is an important question. In such cases, there may be no specific psychosocial development program nor education or support from an individual coach if this is not representative of their coaching philosophy or deliverable within their allocated coaching time. As such, researchers face a challenge of locating an appropriate individual youth sport environment within which to study this important process. This is a critical practical implication in its own right in that parents are dependent on sport programs encouraging psychosocial development and engaging them in the process. Without such organizational-level direction or policy, there risks being no intentional process to psychosocial development (Fraser-Thomas et al., 2005).

Second, while the present study employed focus group interviews as an appropriate method to stimulate an exchange of insights and perceptions from an intact academy population with shared and common interests, future research could extend beyond such singular methods of data collection (McGannon et al., 2021). Ethnographic work, multiple interviews across time, parental journaling, ecological momentary assessments, and children’s perceptions of received parental strategies may form the basis of more longitudinal multi-perspective investigations of parents in different youth sport contexts. Moreover, considering additional demographic factors (e.g., ethnicity/race, family structure, personal sport experience) and how these impact on parental involvement in the context of psychosocial development would be a pertinent cultural direction, as would research that considers the intersectionality of sport parents’ identities and social positions.

In conclusion, by acting on the recommendations from Harwood et al. (2019), the present study revealed the range of contextual strategies that parents employed to support their child’s psychosocial development in elite youth football. The utility value of the 5Cs framework emerged in providing parents with an accessible and user-friendly approach to empower their roles in and out of the academy. Several communication and integration-related barriers were reported by parents that would appear to limit the effects of the current academy program, and these findings offer clear implications for sport organizations to consider if they value the psychosocial development and their long-term duties of care for young athletes.