By promoting strong and healthy relationships and by spotting emerging issues, you can help stop abuse. A few important principles that can guide your efforts include:
Make open communication a priority
Both with your child, and with other athletes across the team.
Watch how kids talk and act with each other at practices
See what insights you gain into their dynamics and interactions.
Expand your child’s circle of safe adults
Even if you are open with your child, they may feel shame telling you about something they feel they could have prevented or avoided. Help them think of adults they would feel comfortable talking to if they need help.
Parents: Ask how coaches treat or talk to your kids
Make sure to watch their body language as they speak.
Be sure all their sport activities are observable and interruptible
The Center’s Minor Athlete Abuse Prevention Policies (MAAPP) provide guidelines related to one-on-one interactions between adults and youth athletes that any sport or recreation organization can implement
Pay attention to your kids’ social media activity
Remind them not to engage in cyberbullying, and be alert to signs they may be a victim of cyberbullying.
In addition to these tips, we offer more than a dozen abuse awareness and prevention courses through its SafeSportTrained.org learning portal.
From the 90-minute SafeSport Trained Core course—the gold standard for abuse prevention training taken by more than 2 million individuals—to short and relatable primers such as the Parent’s Guide to Misconduct in Sport, you’ll learn what it takes to prevent, recognize, and respond to abuse or misconduct in any sport setting.