“Oh boy, this is gonna be a roller coaster”: Creative non-fiction on parent-athlete communication around menstruation in sport

Menstruation remains a stigmatized topic in sport, despite its impact on athletes' performance and well-being. Although communication barriers and limited education leave female athletes feeling unsupported in managing menstruation, little is known about how parents support adolescent athletes through menarche, despite their significant role in socialization and support. To address this gap, this research explores parent-athlete communication surrounding the onset of menarche. Guided by a constructivist paradigm (Tamminen & Poucher, 2020), ten parents (male n = 3, female n = 7) of adolescent female athletes participated in narrative interviews focusing on their experiences communicating with their child as they started menarche. Narrative thematic analysis was used to identify common themes characteristic to the participants' stories of parent-athlete communication. A braided narrative method of creative nonfiction (Cavallerio, 2022) was used to weave the perspectives of mothers and fathers within the cultural context of menstruation to represent the themes constructed during this study, including emotional challenges, framing of menstruation, self-reflection on parenting, and the impact of gender roles on parent-athlete relationships. The results align with research on how cultural taboo shapes how parents support and communicate with their daughters, highlighting emotional challenges and gendered dynamics that shape communication. By using creative non-fiction to represent parents' experiences, this study offers a nuanced understanding of how menarche is navigated in sport families, inspiring reflection on the emotional, cultural, and gendered dynamics that shape communication about menstruation.