Wednesday, May 26, 2010

We're the worst behaved sports parents on Earth!


We're Number One! We're Number One!

It's official. A recent survey of sports parents worldwide concludes that the worst behaved adults on Earth are...us.

Reuters/Ipsos polled 23,000 adults in 22 countries for observations about parental behavior. Its findings: "People living in the United States (60 percent) were most likely to witness unsavory behavior by a parent followed closely by residents of India (59 percent), Italy (55 percent), Argentina (54 percent), Canada (53 percent) and Australia (50 percent). But people in Hungary, the Czech Republic, Mexico, Japan and France were the least likely to see parents behaving badly while their children played sports."

Here's the complete list (as posted by the Josephson Institute)

United States (60%)
India (59%)
Italy (55%)
Argentina (54%)
Canada (53%)
Australia (50%)
Spain (42%)
Belgium (39%)
Great Britain (37%)
Sweden (35%)
Germany (35%)
South Korea (34%)
Poland (32%)
China (31%)
Brazil (31%)
Russia (30%)
Netherlands (28%)
France (26%)
Japan (25%)
Mexico (25%)
Czech Republic (24%)
Hungary (16%)

1 comment:

Mark Folger said...

Hmm, that's interesting. Did they have criteria for what was considered "behaving badly"? Maybe countries with the highest standards for behavior set their "behaving badly" criteria differently than other countries, causing them to report more bad behavior. Whatever their criteria, any bad behavior at children's sporting events shouldn't be tolerated.