Many children grow up dreaming - or maybe even expecting - that they will become a star in football, basketball or whatever their favorite sport may be.
Most parents have more realistic expectations of their children's future athletic achievement, a new study finds. But a substantial minority believe their kids will beat the odds and become collegiate, pro or even Olympic athletes.
In a survey of 785 American parents, 34% thought it was somewhat or very likely that their child would become a small-college athlete, 27% thought it was likely they would become a college scholarship athlete, and 17% thought it was somewhat or very likely they would become a professional or Olympic athlete.
"Most parents seem to have realistically pessimistic expectations about how much their children might achieve in sports," said Chris Knoester, co-author of the study and professor of sociology at The Ohio State University.
"But there were sometimes wide differences in expectations depending on a variety of factors, including parents' race and ethnicity, socioeconomic status, neighborhood they lived in, sports fandom and whether they thought their child had a strong identity as an athlete."
Knoester conducted the study, published recently in the Journal of Sport and Social Issues, with lead author Christopher McLeod, associate professor of health and human performance at the University of Florida.
One factor in particular had a strong impact on parental expectations, McLeod said.
"When parents believe their child thinks of themselves as an athlete, and has a strong athletic identity, that seems to be an on switch for parents to have these very high expectations," he said.
The study was based on adults who participated in the National Sports and Society Survey (NSASS), sponsored by Ohio State's Sports and Society Initiative. The researchers used data on the adults in the survey who were parents of a child aged 6-17 and living at home. If they had more than one child, one child was selected for them to focus on in the survey.
Those surveyed volunteered to participate through the American Population Panel, run by Ohio State's Center for Human Resource Research. Participants, who came from all 50 states, answered the survey online between the fall of 2018 and spring of 2019.
Results showed that parents who thought their child had a strong athletic identity were up to 80 percentage points more likely to believe their child would become a college athlete than parents who didn't think that their child thought of themselves as an athlete "at all." The gap was 35 percentage points when parents considered whether their child would become a pro or Olympic athlete.
"This shows how parents are responding to their children's interest and abilities in sports and what they think about themselves, in connection, and really become invested in this belief they may very well succeed," Knoester said.
Overall, the study found that the older their children were, the lower the expectations that parents had of future athletic success.
"This suggests to me that many parents are thinking rationally about this, and as their children reach certain milestones, they reevaluate their expectations and realize their children probably aren't going to be extraordinarily successful athletes," McLeod said.
The study found that the gender of the child and the parents did not have an impact on expectations for a child's athletic success, which surprised the researchers, who expected higher expectations for boys' success.
Findings showed that Black and Latino parents were more likely than white parents to believe their children would succeed as athletes. That may be because sports are generally seen by some racial and ethnic groups as particularly attractive and valuable pursuits and the best way they have to succeed in society, in some instances, the researchers said.
But the neighborhood racial makeup also seemed to matter over and beyond the racial and ethnic makeup of the families. For example, parents who lived in neighborhoods with virtually all white families thought there was about a 30% chance their child would become a small-college athlete, compared to 52% for those with a mostly minority population.
"There may be cultural and peer group influences in neighborhoods that influence whether parents think their children could reach a higher level of athletic success, Knoester said.
And those from lower socioeconomic backgrounds were more likely to believe their children would become pro or Olympic athletes than those from higher socioeconomic backgrounds, although they did not think their children were more likely to become college athletes.
Even sports fandom played a role, the study found.
"Parents who were stronger sports fans were more optimistic or keen on expecting their kids to become an elite athlete," Knoester said.
Even though a majority of parents surveyed seemed to have realistic expectations of their children's chance of athletic success, the substantial minority who predicted success was still much higher than would be possible, Knoester noted.
Only about 7% of high school athletes continue to play sports in college. And the odds of becoming a pro athlete are much smaller than that. For example, the NCAA estimates that only 1.5% of NCAA football players get drafted into the NFL.
"We should be concerned about people putting too much focus on their child becoming a high-level elite athlete, given the odds that it is most likely not going to happen for the overwhelming majority," Knoester said.
"There needs to be a Plan B if the athletic dreams and aspirations don't work out."
What this study does, McLeod said, is point to which parents are most at risk of having these unrealistically high expectations.
"Our findings can help target educational messaging around parental pressures and behaviors most likely to be associated with overly high expectations," McLeod said.
