Scott Mandel, director of the musical theater department at Pacoima Middle School in Los Angeles, said he has never been threatened, but remembers a parent screaming obscenities at him after he didn't give her daughter a vocal solo. But Mandel has found that tempers decrease when parents are kept informed. When he has a parent-teacher conference, the child sits in. Much of this parental anger is caused by greater pressure to have children get into good colleges with nary a black mark on their record, said William Damon, director of the Stanford Center on Adolescence and a professor of education at Stanford University. It's also caused by excessive stress.
Experts say parents are working longer hours with less time to spend with children.
Richard Schultz, an ex-coach and former executive director of the U.S. Olympic Committee, said some parents don't have time to get to know their children. Ray Warren, president of Raycom Sports, a marketing and television company, said parents can get too involved. Experts worry that such behavior sets a bad example, and worse yet, keeps kids from realizing that making mistakes and not always being No. 1 is a part of life. Because the nature of sports is more fast-paced and frenetic, it's easier for parents to lose their cool in that venue than, say, at a high school musical, said Fred Engh, president and founder of the National Alliance for Youth Sports. A 1999 survey of five counties in southern Florida found that 82 percent of adults surveyed thought parents were too aggressive in youth sports.