Influence of Parental Involvement on the Mental Health of Adolescent Players: A Systematic Review

The National Youth Policy of India (2014) categorizes adolescents as those aged between 10-19. This segment, comprising 19.6 % of the nation’s population takes part in a range of sporting activities for recreation, fitness and a possible sporting career. Parents are usually the first initiators for their child’s sport participation and subsequently serve as motivators for further progress in sports. Parents invest time, energy and money in youth sports and this contribution is broadly termed as “parental involvement in sport”. This systematic review identifies the effect of parental involvement on the adolescent mental health. The results revealed that in general, parental involvement can positively influence factors such as enjoyment, motivation, and long-term involvement in sports. Alternatively, when the adolescents perceive parental influence as pressuring or excessively expecting or criticizing, it leads to negative experiences such as competition anxiety and low self-esteem, thereby leading to decreased sporting performance. It also emerged that parental involvement had a strong and direct bearing on the pre-competition and competition anxiety levels of adolescent players. The relationship between parental involvement, self-esteem, sports achievement motivation and choice of sport also emerged during this review.