The parents' involvement in the career of female artistic gymnasts: the coaches' perspectives

Abstract

This study aimed to identify and discuss how the Artistic Gymnastics coaches perceive the parent's participation on gymnasts sport development in the formative years. Thirty four coaches from 29 sport institutions in Brazil were interviewed. The content analysis technique proposed by Bardin was adopted for data treatment. The results showed that most coaches are aware of the importance of parental involvement and, therefore, they try to establish ways of communication and approaching to ensure that parents are engaged in the daily workouts and competitions, as well as aware of their attitudes, actions and investments that are crucial to support the gymnasts' success at competitive sport.