Although, American teacher and researcher, Coleman Griffiths opened the research perspective from athletes to coaches in a 1926, in a book entitled, Psychology of Coaching, consistent research efforts on coaches in refereed journals was somewhat scarce until the latter part of the 20^th century. In fact, empirical research on what exactly is coaching, did not appear in published literature until Côté, Salmela Trudel, Baria and Russell (1995) proposed the Coaching Model. This research program included a paradigm change - the use of systematic qualitative research and analysis. Aside from the obvious central coaching components of training and competition, and the somewhat less apparent one of organization, there was also the peripheral component of context. And herein lies not only the societal context in which we are raised, but also the dimension of familial support, or lack thereof, that either helps or hinders the development of exceptional performance.

The introduction of the family and its influence was later suggested, in relation to the attainment of exceptional performance of not only athletes, but also of experts in the arts, and science. In 1985, University of Chicago educational psychologist, Benjamin Bloom published Developing Talent in Young People. Personally, while on sabbatical leave in Australia in 1988, I recognized two critical changes in my thinking. The first was, the universality of expertise development irrespective of whether it occurred in art, science or sport. The second was, and most appropriate for this current issue of STAPS, was that the roles that the family played a number of significant, yet evolving, dimensions to ensure the facilitation of exceptional performance of their children in sport and other areas of achievement. More recently, Czikszentmihalyi (1997) in his book on creativity, suggested that parents’ most important role was in the shaping of character and the teaching of values, especially honesty. The second was, the richness of interview-based data, as a valid and insightful source of investigation in this research area.

This leads us to the current issue of STAPS on the role of families and exceptional performance in sport and music. Given the above brief introduction, it seemed logical to consider multiple methodologies to study the role of families and exceptional performance. It is also exciting to blend family research from music education and learning in the context of sport. Perhaps most significantly, has been the challenge of interweaving of the ideas of researchers from Belgium, Brazil, Canada, England, France and the United States, given the seeming universality of evidence on exceptional performance in sport (Starkes & Ericsson, 2003).

Of particular interest to me as a retired university professor, who worked for 30 years in both the English and French languages in Canada and, more recently, in Portuguese in Brazil, it has been a very exciting and challenging task to attempt to integrate the perspectives of this new globalized group of colleagues to present their views on families within their particular research domains, and to make it seem digestible to a francophone readership. This said, I will attempt to stitch together the research of my contributing collaborators in these introductory comments. Herein lies the challenge for this newly composed family of scientists, to talk about our specific research on families and achievement, and attempt to communicate this to a larger family of French speaking readers. Allons-y !

This issue includes developmental perspectives of parenting, both in sport and music, from each of the six contributions and sheds light upon specific aspects of the role of parents between selected performance domains, levels of expertise, as well as particular international performance contexts both in sport and music. As an organizational heuristic for this special issue, I have chosen to bracket the articles along a continuum from the maximum involvement of parents with multiple Olympic or world champion athletes in the Durand-Bush, Salmela and Thompson article to the almost lack of involvement of parents with Brazilian football players in the Moraes, Salmela, Rabela and Vianna Jr. contribution. Between these extremes various forms of parental involvement are reported in individual and team sports as well as in music (Côté, Fraser-Thomas, Robertson-Wilson, & Soberlak ; Ewing, Hedstrom, Wiesner, & Gano-Overway; Wylleman, Verdet, Lévêque, De Knop & Huts ; Burland & Davidson).

Durand-Bush, Salmela and Thompson’s article centers upon a very unique subject sample in sport since the athletes had to have won consecutive Olympic gold or world championship medals in different games. The athletes, their coaches and parents were interviewed using semi-structured interviews on the contributing factors for their success across their sport careers. A “neo-Bloomian” framework adapted by Côté (1999) was used to define what Bloom (1985) referred to as the early, middle and late years, as respectively being the sampling, specializing and investment years. An additional phase, the maintaining years, was defined as the period that followed the initial gold medal performance. Durand-Bush, Salmela and Thompson found that the parents permitted their child to have fun, to discover and experiment with the process of being involved in various sport activities and did not pressure them for immediate results. During the specializing years, parental involvement was more active since they had to design their own lives to meet the growing demands and schedules of training and competition. During the specializing and maintenance years they provided continuing social support but played more passive roles.

Côté, Fraser-Thomas, Robertson-Wilson and Soberlak provided a unique qualitative and quantitative methodology which permitted the analysis of both retrospective recall of their involvement which was also linked to actual behaviors in this process including driving, coaching, fundraising, organizing and keeping statistics. Issues related to single parenting were also addressed. They suggested that the interview process could become more standardized and objective by pin pointing dimensions of the verbal reports which could be externally validated. The use of observable behaviors of parents in the sport context provides a valuable new perspective to this line of research.

Ewing, Hedstrom, Wiesner and Gano-Overway introduced an original qualitative study based upon quantitative data using the high end of an adult influence scale in which the parents reported themselves to be more than average in pressuring their children to be involved in tennis. To be selected for this study, the parent was required to have taken their children to classes and to have put more pressure on their child than their spouse. The higher order categories were in line with the reported parental demands in other articles in this issue, including the impact of tennis on the family, financial and time constraints, and parental pressures and dilemmas. Of particular interest to me was the data on parents teaching their children coping skills for competition, monitoring the coaches’ behaviours with their child and attempting to control their own emotions during competitions.

Wylleman, Verdet, Lévêque De Knop and Huts provided an interesting reference point based upon research on families and the development of Belgian athletes. They presented a general model of athletic development that took a perspective of sport development from initiation to retirement, and the role of parents in this process. Perhaps of most important finding of their research was that the introduction of sport schools (sport écoles) in Belgium in which studies could be included with sport training, were an important resource for facilitating learning in both domains. The students reported that family support was most important in their achievements, even more so than that of medical, or educational sources. In addition, this marriage of school and sport relieved the stresses for the mother as the primary means of transport to the sport training environment.

The Burland and Davidson contribution in parental involvement in music offers an interesting counterpoint to Moraes et al., specifically regarding the parents of Brazilian soccer players, using both quantitative and qualitative data. It was demonstrated that successful musicians often had parents who actively were involved in their child’s education in music. Since the instruments and the tuition fees were expensive, they were obliged to invest in their child’s future career. At home, they also made concessions by driving to lessons and waiting until their conclusion to drive back, by monitoring their performance, giving feedback and organizing performances.

But usually, the mothers who had a higher socioeconomic status were permitted the luxury of not working, but helped and encouraged their child to practice more. They sometimes gave up hobbies that that they had previously practiced. Of particular interest, was that the students who remained in music had parents who themselves were not expert performers. Sometimes, successful performers of musical parents felt obliged to practice for their parents and felt a loss of freedom through the vicarious needs of their parents to have their child succeed in music. The same has been witnessed in the sport.

Moraes, Salmela, Rabela and Vianna Jr. adapted the quantitative methodology Davidson, Howe, Moore and Sloboda (1996) used in music to Brazilian tennis and soccer players, but also added interview data with the players, coaches and parents in both football and tennis. The levels of involvement of parents were rated on a number of scales including their personal involvement in the sport, their interactions with the coach, modifications of daily routines because of the demands of the sport and other sport specific items. What was interesting was that the parents of the tennis players who belonged to a private sport club were involved at comparable levels as were the parents of the musician in the Davidson et al. (1996) study, but parents of the soccer players were only minimally involved, since their lower economic status obliged them to remain at work at home. Young football players who were aspiring to a professional career, had to move to a major city far from their home in the countryside, and away from their parents and family. Tennis players from urban settings, remained with their parents during their careers in more comfortable settings.

In summary, this issue provides a framework that has more communalities than differences on the role of families and the attainment of exceptional performance, both in sport and music. Much can still be learned methodologically by combining the various reported methods and their nuances to better understand these complex, but central interactions, especially from a cross cultural perspective.