Parenting practices and age-group swimming: a correlational study.

To examine the parenting correlates of children's experiences in age-group swimming, 44 families of 6- to 14-year-old competitive swimmers were studied. Mothers and fathers completed questionnaires on their childrearing practices; children, coaches, fathers, and mothers completed questionnaires on the child's enjoyment, effort, competitiveness, commitment, and ability. For both mothers and fathers, parental support was positively associated with child enthusiasm, whereas parental performance outcome goals and directiveness showed curvilinear effects. Specifically, parents reporting moderate levels of directiveness and performance outcome goals had children reporting the greatest enthusiasm for swimming. The major mother-father difference concerned modeling: Although mother modeling was positively associated with child enthusiasm for both boys and girls, father modeling showed a negative association with child enthusiasm, but only for boys.