By Dongyun Kwon
A book launch event will be held at the Yarra Glen Memorial Hall on Sunday 11 February.
Former Yarra Valley resident Karen Viggers wrote a book Sidelines to remind the bad influences of parental pressure in sport.
The book is fiction written through the eyes of three adults and three teen characters drawn from her own experience as a soccer mum for 14 years.
Ms Viggers said although the book is centred around soccer, it could be about any kids’ activities that people get competitive about.
“Even though I was writing about sport, I discovered I was writing a commentary through a lens of sport on modern society and modern parenting,” she said.
One of the triggers that made Ms Viggers write the novel is a brawl that broke out at a U12s game in Canberra a few years ago.
“A couple of kids started hitting each other on the field, then some parents ran on and got involved and started punching each other,” she said.
“Often the junior referees, who are learning how to be refs, have to deal with a lot of abuse from parents and coaches and I started to think what things might be underlying that over-investment in seeing parents wanting to see their kids win all the time and being obsessed with winning and success.
“So I use my fictional characters to try and explore that through my book.”
Ms Viggers’ son was a referee from when he was 13 to 20 and faced many parents who were shouty and rude to him from the sidelines, in the end, he got sick of it and dropped out.
The author wants to encourage parents to think about their behaviour through her book.
“It’s been shown that one of the major reasons young people drop out of sport in their mid-teens is because their parents get too serious about it all and their enjoyment disappears and they don’t want to do it anymore,” Ms Viggers said.
“To my future readers, to go along and by all means support your kids, try not to shout out, respect the refs and the math officials, and at the end of the game, instead of dissecting and telling your kids what they’ve done wrong, say I really loved watching your play today.
“If kids want feedback, then give some feedback in a constructive manner but remember that sport, first and foremost, is supposed to be fun.”
Ms Viggers said there are many positive points for children to play sport and kids should enjoy sport without any pressure to take them.
“What sport means to me is participation for kids, fitness, learning to be a team player, building friendships, learning resilience, learning to win with grace and lose with dignity, learning to accept the decisions of a referee without arguing even if you don’t like it, that’s part of life sometimes, and it’s all about mental and physical health,” she said.
“We need to find ways to keep our kids in sport, not getting so serious because sport is meant to be fun.
“We need to think that only a very small number of kids are going to make it to the top, less than 2 per cent are gonna make it to rep level or higher in sport and we need to be a bit more realistic in our expectations.”
The book launch event will be at the Yarra Glen Memorial Hall at 2.30pm on Sunday 11 February and books will be on sale on the day through Verso Books.
“I have a lovely author friend coming to interview me, who’s really passionate about sport as well, and we’ll be having a discussion about the themes arising from the book and it’ll be open to questions and there will be a bit of afternoon tea afterwards,” Ms Viggers said.
It’s a free event but people wishing to attend have to register at the following link, for the catering purpose for afternoon tea, events.humanitix.com/in-conversation-with-karen-viggers
