'Move your feet!"
It was a common outburst Mohamed Ismath would shout from the sidelines as he watched his eight-year-old son Muzeen at tennis camp.
Eight years later, Muzeen is now ranked the 17th tennis player under 18 in Canada - and his dad is surprised at how a casual pastime ballooned into four to five hours a day of intense training.
But he's even more shocked by the effect Muzeen's enthusiasm for the sport had on him.
Mr. Ismath developed a network of friends, picked up the sport himself and formed a stronger relationship with his son.
These changes are also experienced by parents who perch in front of the soccer field and beside the baseball dugout, according to a new study from Purdue University. It suggests parents of children who play sports enjoy many of the same benefits - social and physical - as their kids.
Counter to the stereotype of aggressive parents getting into fights in the bleachers of a little league game, for example, the study found that many quickly learned proper "bleacher behaviour" from their kids.
But one of the most surprising results of the study, says Travis Dorsch, a doctoral student in health and kinesiology at Purdue University and the lead author of the study, was that through organizing carpools or chaperoning tournaments, many parents formed close relationships with one another that continued outside the context of the sport.
"One group of parents really, really hammered home that you really make life-long friends," he said.
This has been the case for Mr. Ismath. As Muzeen logged more hours on the courts, his father began to recognize the parents who were "regulars" at the tennis club.
Now he and his wife often have dinner parties and invite two other couples whose kids play tennis competitively.
"We move together well because we live and die by the courts. We've become friends," he said.
Last week, he even sent Muzeen off to New York with "the tennis families," as he calls them, to enjoy a vacation.
The report, published in the September issue of the Journal of Sport and Exercise Psychology, notes that some participants grew so attached to these new friends that they described being left with an "empty feeling" when their child dropped a sport.
"Not only did they report missing the sport setting itself, but also the social connections they formed with other youth sport parents," the study authors wrote.
For the parents of elite athletes, it was even more difficult to return to life before the game, Mr. Dorsch said.
"They said, 'Our whole social milieu is based around youth sport - now what do we do?' " The researchers
interviewed 26 parents of children between the ages of six and 15 who played organized basketball, baseball, softball or soccer.
They also found that many parents who were un-athletic picked up the same sport as their child.
"Parents with little or no previous experience described the opportunity to learn so much more," Mr. Dorsch said.
Mr. Ismath picked up a racquet for the first time a year after his son started playing. Spending so much time on the courts piqued his interest in the sport, he says.
"I got hooked on it and became a decent player." At one point he was spending four to five hours a week working on his swing.
And while tennis has whipped him into shape, Mr. Ismath says the main reason he would never give it up is because it's the foundation of a new relationship with Muzeen.
"We hang out together, we watch tennis together...normally I would not have the opportunity if I was a regular father staying at home."
