How is sport ‘moming’ affecting your health?
No one said being a Sports mom was easy... but you don’t have time to be sick while taking care of your tiny humans! Here are a few ways that can hopefully help you manage some of the stress and avoid some of the health consequences that come along with being a sports mom.
The purpose of this study was to get a sport mom’s point of view on how involvement in their child’s sport is affecting her all around health including mental, physical and relational health.
Raise your hand if you’ve ever been stuck in sport mom mode for so long you forget about taking care of yourself … I think all moms have been there at one point or another. The intention of this article is to acknowledge all of the stressors that being a sport mom can come with, and recognize how the constant stress of trying to keep up with life could be taking a toll on you.
Hopefully, this article can give you a little bit of clarity as to how being a sports mom can be incredibly stressful and give you some tips on how to manage the crazy season! The moms from this study said some things that affected their health negatively were the time commitments and strains with their partners about sports. This article also gave some tips such as approaching sports as a ‘family affair’ and getting the help of others as the best way to cope and manage their sport mom stress.
PRESS PAUSE:
Take a second to reflect on your own personal health (including mental physical, and relational)
PONDER:
How has your health been doing lately? Do you need to work on taking care of yourself a little bit better?
PRACTICE:
When you’re feeling like you can’t possibly keep doing all of the things that sport moms are expected to do, try to be mindful that you’re not alone (pretty much all mom’s feel like that!) and use strategies such as approaching your child’s sport as something fun for your whole family or asking for help when you need it. We’re all in this together!!
Article Citation: Bean, C., Fortier, M., & Chima, K. (2019). Exploring challenges and strategies associated with the demands of competitive male youth hockey on mother’s health. Leisure/ Loisir. 43(1), 125-150. https://doi.org/10.1080/14927713.2019.1583075