In the January 2013 NICHQ Leadership message Beyond Bullying, I shared that 42 percent of children in a Yale Rudd Center study reported being bullied by physical education teachers and sports coaches. Yes, 42 percent! Quite frankly I was shocked at this statistic.
That said, another study found that 45 percent of children “said their coaches called them names, insulted them or verbally abused them” and another study, this one from the United Kingdom, found that 25 percent of 6,000 young adults reported that they suffered emotional harm at the hands of their coaches.
Just think about that for a moment. Depending on the study, between 25 to 45 percent of our children who play sports are falling victim to a coach who is habitually cruel and abusing them. Let that really sink in. Up to almost half our children who play sports are being abused by coaches.
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