Hold on to your hats, people… I think I’ve just worked out what’s going wrong with kids’ sport.

Obviously I don’t mean the sport itself: we can all agree that physical activity for children is a vital part of their development and ongoing health.

Yes, some kids would benefit more from a social setting rather than strict competition, but it’s largely accepted sport and activity promotes physical, mental and emotional wellbeing.

But if it’s so good for these little poppets we increasingly seem to live our lives around, why are parents struggling more and more to stand respectfully on the sidelines?

Why then, are parents having to be reminded that it’s not actually about them, and in all honesty, it’s unlikely little Jimmy or Jenny will run on to the park in the green and gold any time soon?

That’s the real problem and this rise of the unruly parent is now one of the biggest reasons kids drop out of organised sport.

At most games, across most codes, you now have to support your children in their endeavours alongside signs that say things like: “These are kids.” “This is a game.” “The umpires are human.” “This is not the (AFL/ANZ Championships/World Series/etc).”

It reminds me of those laminated A4 posters in the communal work toilets reminding us to flush properly or how to wash our hands. We are probably not going to make it as a species if we can’t work out that out by ourselves.

But back to solving this problem.

There are many different reasons this abuse has started infiltrating our weekends, including heightened external pressures on parents, and the increased ‘professionalism’ of kid’s sport.

A few months ago, my husband and I went through the eye-opening experience of attending a SAPSASA footy tournament.

For those that don’t know, this is a competition for primary school kids.

I’ll say it again: primary school children.

With work juggles, we had to attend separately. When we got home, compared notes and were tetchy at each other and the world, it took us a while to work out what was going on.

Between us, we had probably watched or walked around seven or eight different games of footy, and each of us was perturbed, not by the behaviour of the kids, but by the way parents were speaking to not just their children, but about other kids too.

I witnessed one father in a full business suit, the only allowance made for his surroundings was a loosened tie, standing toe to toe with the sideline and berating his boy for not being close enough to the play, not defending hard enough, not being… well… enough.

Never mind his team were smashing the opposition, so the ball wasn’t down his end at all.

Then there was the dad I got chatting to who openly said he put up his hand to goal umpire rather than be subjected to the sideline snarkiness of his teammates’ parents. And the overheard conversation between a group of mums about how ‘that kid even got picked…. he’s so fat he can’t even move’.

It’s enough to make anyone sick, yet it seems the sideline is echoing social media, in that people will say things there that they’d never consider appropriate at home with their own family.

There are many different reasons this abuse has started infiltrating our weekends, including heightened external pressures on parents, and the increased ‘professionalism’ of kid’s sport. (My husband who’s played or coached in the AFL for over a quarter of a century said when he was picked in that same SAPSASA competition in the ’90s he could hardly drop a ball on to his foot, whereas these kids were seriously skilled up.)

But whatever the reason, we have to start doing something very different, because all the signs pleading for better behaviour, the colour-coded vests and ‘Committing to Code of Conduct’ letters are clearly not slowing this down.

And so I return to the options for solving this problem.

For me, two things happened in short succession.

One, I attended a Healthy Minds well-being lecture driven by Preventative Psychologist Dr Tom Nehmy, and then I sat in the stands at my son’s footy game two nights later.

We were beating a team that had been undefeated for years and there was a clash that saw one of our players retaliate from the ground with a slap.

To be clear, there is no room for that type of behaviour, and quite rightly he was sent off the field.

But it was the moment after that that caused an issue, because as this visibly distraught child was leaving the field, his coach gave him a fist-bump.

Now the father next to me saw that as a disgraceful act of a coach congratulating a kid for doing something wrong.

I saw a teary 11-year-old who knew he’d stuffed up very, very badly being offered comfort in that moment, before he was excluded from the game.

A difference was that this father then proceeded to abuse and criticise the coach.  He was unable to see the other side of what had happened and presumed the worse.

He made this judgement without knowing and trusting that this coach who had only shown the team and crowd a measured approach, would sit with the player after the game and talk through what had happened and what should have happened.

Right now, even just reading this, you have probably already jumped to your conclusion, but this brings me to a line from the well-being lecture.

Amid the wide-ranging discussion about healthy minds and performance, one example really stood out: when someone cuts us off in traffic, we can either presume that person made a mistake, slow down and let them in, or can we jump to the idea that they did it to us deliberately and specifically and turn into an apoplectic dashboard warrior, ready to take vengeance.

In the same way, if that spectator had stopped and presumed the best of our coach and kid, he (and the rest of us) would have had a much more enjoyable night.

And that, my friends, is it.

It’s simple… and that’s coming from someone who’s been pretty comfortable living in the empty half of the glass for most of my life.

If we can individually develop some resilience and understanding – and believe that the vast majority of people are innately good and want to do the right thing – it will make watching some knee-high kids a much more enjoyable experience for all.

And oh yeah… if you still can’t do that, then you’ll be the one leaving the stadium, not the kids.

I’ll even put up another sign about it.

Ali Clarke presents the breakfast show on Mix 102.3. She is a regular columnist for InDaily.