PhD project The aim of the project is to identify, measure and influence the parental behaviors that make children feel safe and independent within the sporting context. The hope is to contribute to making children's experience of sport as enjoyable as possible and that more children continue to play sport later in life.
The overall purpose of this doctoral project is to develop an understanding of parental secure base support within different contexts of youth sport and examine whether increasing parent’s awareness of their secure base support behaviors influences their child’s psychological development, exploration behaviors, and their intentions to remain in sport. This project includes developing and validating the Parental Secure Base Scale for Sport (PSBS-S).
The doctoral project is a collaboration between the Department of Psychology at Umeå University and the Department of Sport and Exercise Sciences, Swansea University, Wales.
Parenting is an important responsibility that has the potential to determine the future independent lives of children. One arena of children’s lives in which parents are of utmost importance is youth sport. Historically, sport parenting research has focused on how parents are involved in their child’s sporting journey and how they influence children’s development and experiences. Although research has provided a clear indication of the types of parental behaviors children prefer and that appear to lead to positive outcomes, it is also apparent that several factors influence children’s perceptions of these behaviors and the consequences that subsequently arise.
Specifically, children’s perceptions of different types of parental involvement depend on the child’s age, timing competition situation (e.g. if the child is winning or losing) and context (e.g. at home, at practice, at competition). Research has also showed that the reliability and consistency of support is more important than the amount of support children receive. Despite this, there is a gap between the support that parents perceive that they provide and the support that children perceive that they receive.
Therefore, to progress this research area further we are interested of understanding the extent to which there is alignment between parents’ and children’s perceptions within triads (two parents, one child), apart from previous research that either studied children and parents separately or from a dyadic perspective. Additionally, to increase explanatory power within the youth sport research we are drawing on a specific relationship theoretical framework, namely Attachment theory’s notion of the secure base (Bowlby, 1988).
A secure base functions to support exploratory behavior, involving a child leaving an attachment figure for autonomous exploration, to take part in activities, and for risk taking. In essence, the concept of secure base provides a sound theoretical basis for understanding how individuals can grow as a result of being attached to someone, which we anticipate is important for continued engagement and motivation in sport.
Dr. Louise Davis https://www.umu.se/en/staff/louise-davis/
Prof. Camilla Knight https://www.swansea.ac.uk/staff/c.j.knight/
Dr. Olivier Rouquette https://www.swansea.ac.uk/staff/olivier.rouquette/
Dr. Vicky Lovett https://www.swansea.ac.uk/staff/v.e.lovett/
