Sports parents can ruin their kid's game with bad behavior. Here's why it happens.

There’s an “endless archive of bad days” that Jennifer Dunway has had as a soccer mom, but one in particular stands out. She wasn’t happy with the coaching or the fact that her then-9-year-old son’s team lost their morning game. During the second game, ”I was projecting all of my anxiety and discontent to anyone who came in contact with me,” she says.The Ohio-based mom proceeded to yell at the refs, the players and the opposing team’s parents, and when the game ended, she “hurriedly snatched” her son away from his coach and teammates. When they passed a team of kids celebrating a goal, Dunway turned to her son and said, “That’s what it sounds like when you score a goal, [but] you wouldn’t know.” Silence followed, but she knew “it was anything but silent in his head.” At last, her son responded.

“Mommy, usually the things you say to me are helpful, but today you are just plain mean,” he told her. “Mommy, you are mean.”

The life of a sports parent can be hectic, and expensive. It might involve setting an alarm for 6 a.m. on a Saturday or Sunday morning, week after week, or tapping into the savings account to pay for equipment, team fees and tournament getaways. Sports moms and dads celebrate wins with their arms in the air and high-fives to follow. They wipe tears (sometimes even their own) after every devastating loss. But some can become so-called bad sports parents — those who are so overly invested in the game and their children’s experiences that they have to let everyone know it! Or in Dunway’s case, let her child know it.

The world of youth sports is rife with examples of unsportsmanlike conduct from caregivers, from fistfights in the bleachers to outright cheating. Chad Barnsdale from Nashua, N.H., witnessed a parent “sneak onto the field during a soccer game and actually move the ball closer to the opposing team’s goal.” Barnsdale says he and some other parents were shocked and disgusted by the soccer mom’s brazen move, but many couldn’t help but laugh a little. “Needless to say, the ref caught on pretty quickly and the parent was promptly ejected from the game.”

But parents running onto the field isn’t all that uncommon. At one of his son’s soccer games, another dad “was so angry at the referee for calling a foul against his son that he ran onto the field and began screaming and swearing at the referee,” says Zeeshan Khan in Michigan. According to Khan, the referee called the police, who escorted the dad off the field.

What compels some parents to cross the line — literally, in some cases — at their children’s games? Clinical psychologist Carolina Estevez explains that these behaviors stem from good intentions. Parents “may think that they are acting in the best interest of their children by advocating for them in this aggressive manner,” she tells Yahoo Life.

That competitiveness can also stem from a strong attachment to their child’s athletic performance, and how they perceive it reflecting on themselves.

“Many view their children as an extension of themselves, making their children’s successes and failures their own,” Estevez explains. “ When their child’s team is losing, they may feel like they are failing as a parent, leading them to act out in frustration.”

And whereas this may temporarily make the parent feel better or “in control,” the effects on the children can be devastating, Estevez warns.

“Young athletes are extremely impressionable and can take in the aggression from sports parents, often internalizing it,” she says. “This can lead to a decrease in self-confidence and could cause them to feel like failures if their team does not win.”

Some youth leagues have created reminders about acceptable sideline conduct in an effort to curb bad behavior. Jennifer Dunway, meanwhile, considers herself proof that even the loudest sports parents can change their ways.

"I am by no means perfect in my approach to sideline parenting these days," she says. "I wake up on game days and I am full of anxiety. I still try to control every moment of the day leading up to game time and I am a mess on the inside while my kids are playing. But I choose each time I set foot on the sideline to honor my children and their teammates. These are the words I repeat to myself when I feel myself slipping: 'Honor the work they put into preparing for this game. Honor their time on the field.'"

She feels "lucky" that her son, now 11, has "survived having me as a soccer parent."

"Last week my 11-year-old played a game against a rival team," she shares. "They haven't beat them in over a year and they didn't win this time either. But my son was working hard, his teammates were putting together the pieces from practice and they were having fun. He didn't hear my voice once while he played and when he came off the field he was smiling. That's a win."

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