Trophy Kids review

Trophy Kids review

From the executive producers Sarah Aubrey and Peter Berg, ‘Trophy Kids’ is a production of HBO sports documentary that centers on four parents who are infatuated with the sporty rivalry of their kids. By infatuation, the documentary tries to highlight the different levels of dedication and motivation of these parents. High school basketball, golf, football, and tennis are the four sports in which the five children participate in. The documentary episode captures the training session, the actual game days, as well as post-training and post-match talks, which are mostly curses and in-depth conversations between the parents and their children. Of all the scenes, the most moving one is about the young footballer, Justus, and his father, Joshua, when the former withdraws from an ongoing match and breaks down on how he is always distressed while on a ride with his dad (Berg and Bell 2013).

In ‘How to Land Your Kid in Therapy’ by Lori Gottlieb, the author – who is also a psychotherapist – tries to justify how parents’ preoccupation with their children’s’ contentment may be in real sense misguiding them into a calamitous maturity. The author, basing her argument on several other writers’ works, highlights a revelation that parents being too much attached to their kids’ daily activities and well-being might actually be a risky situation for the children. In the article, it is noted that the key objective for most parents is to nurture kids who will eventually develop into industrious fresh adults, but in recent times, there has been a disparity in the way of separating both parents’ contentment from the children’s happiness. It is becoming evident that safeguarding kids from despondency have a resulting impact of denying them of delight once they reach adulthood (Gottlieb 2011).

In Paul Sullivan’s ‘The Rising cost of Youth Sports, in Money and Emotion,’ the author narrates how parents assume that their investments in sporting activities are vindicated, and further advises them to spend more in academic work rather than co-curricular activities (Sullivan 2015). This is probably because of the three sporting coaches who were prolific sportsmen of their time, and now share sentiments that the finance, effort, and time parents input in sports today is generally out-of-place. A lot of money is being channeled by parents into sporting activities, and they, in turn, have higher expectations for their children. However, professional sports coaches caution these actions, citing the limited chances available for children who want to pursue sports as their careers (Sullivan 2015).

Parents put a lot of effort into their children, mostly in terms of time and money, and in return, expect exceedingly much from their kids, mostly in the form of success. With this, the children become confused as to whether their parents have their kids’ interest behind the support, or it is actually a personal reason that drives the adults. In the midst of the confusion, their emerge aspects of stress and mental disorders among the children, who share a feeling of being enslaved to payout the investment that has been placed on them. Given the intensity at which the parents demand positive results from their kids, and the children’s limited freedom to pursue their own pathway based on their personal motivations, parents infatuation with their offspring’s success often loses meaning from being a ‘for common good’ initiative to being a personal agenda.

One of the main reasons that make this obsession unhealthy, especially for the children, is the parents’ failure to make a distinction between genuinely loving and regularly observing. In Trophy Kids, one of the parents, Andre Avery – who is the controlling golf father – makes a statement saying, “Get the kids to buy into your dream. If you can get the kids to buy into what you are selling, you have got it made.” (Berg and Bell 2013).With this declaration, it is clear that it was not Amari’s dream that his dad was assisting in achieving, but rather his own agenda. By turning up in all her training sessions, as well as all games, did not necessarily mean that the dad was portraying his love for the daughter. Instead, he was keeping an eye on her while utilizing every opportunity to shout at her.

For the parents, it is all about the money spent on the children, in most cases too much to be refunded. Thus they hope to gain from it when their children make it to the top tier leagues. For the case of Derek, his father –Steve- had spent so much on his boy, thus explaining the reason behind his frustration. He had spent so much money and time on his son’s high school basketball coaching, hoping that Derek would secure a scholarship in college (Berg and Bell 2013). Steve became more frustrated on realizing the amount he had spent on the son, and would also be forced to pay college fees for the boy. According to Sullivan, parents spend up to approximately 11% of the total gross income on funding sports activities for their kids (2015). This is often a huge chunk out of a household’s revenue, making them forego some important necessities. Transportation to faraway venues and bookings for professional coaching are part of the main reason for the high expenses. When reality dawns upon the family that a lot of money is being channeled on sports, the urge to have a positive outcome from investment pushes the parents to force success out of their children.

In conclusion, parents’ personal investment in children is the root of the toxic obsession traits they tend to depict. A kid under pressure to perform, not for their personal benefit but rather for the pride of the parent, in most cases, displays signs of frustrations and mental abnormalities. It is for this reason that parents need to play their support role for their children, and not selfishly desire for individualistic success.