Coaching young
children
From the
Soccer-Coach_L
manual
Coaching children under six years of age presents some additional
challenges due to their immaturity, short attention span, and less
developed muscles. You will also need to deal with a great variation
between personalities, physical size, and abilities. Your objective
should be for all of the kids to have fun, make friends, and learn
some soccer skills that will help them should they decide to
continue to the next level. You should not expect to win all of your
games or expect everyone to listen to long lectures. Your goal is to
introduce them to basic concepts like dribbling and kicking and make
it enough fun that they want to keep playing as their bodies and
minds mature. Go down to their level of thinking. Don't try to bring
them up to yours. What was fun when you were four years old? The kid
who is watching seagulls will tell you were the greatest coach in
the world if he had fun. He will have fun when he kicks the ball or
at least when he makes an attempt and gets praise instead of
criticism.
The mental development
of 6-12 year olds in youth soccer
by
Dan Freigang Ph.D.
reproduced courtesy of
Fundamentalsoccer.com
Mental development for 6 year olds and under
The key issue for children under six
is positive self-esteem. Children will play the game longer, try
harder and overcome obstacles if the environment is conducive to
building self esteem. The concept of "self" is learned, not by
winning games, but by facing progressively difficult challenges.
Earning success promotes higher levels of self-awareness, stronger
self-image and self-confidence. The child up to the age of 6 is
focused primary upon developing the self. At this stage all
experiences should allow the child to fully engage the physical
domain within the child. It would be destructive to make tactical
demands on a six year old when they don't have the cognitive ability
to comprehend the concept. "The make believe" ability of the child's
mind is dominant at this stage. Most interactions of the make
believe world can be unitized successfully in the very small sided
game. Every touch can be a resounding success. Youngsters have very
short attention spans and can't stand hearing verbal descriptions of
observations from a coach. To much verbiage and the moment is lost.
Players like to move and require constant opportunity to be
successful. The under six player is developing a central nervous
system that requires general movement with little refined skill.
It's OK if a six year old cannot bend a ball at 40 yards, it's not
in their abilities to master such a demand. If we try to teach this
demand we waste time and destroy the child's motivation. The world
of a six year old revolves around the imaginary victories they
create in their realities. This is a normal phase and should be
encouraged with corrections and criticisms held to a minimum. Given
the correct environment the children will find a way to play. When
levels of demand are to abstract in the full 11 v 11 game (tactics)
or the physical demands to challenging the result is anger,
helplessness and ultimately dropout
more
Physical and mental
differences between 6-8 year olds
Reproduced by kind permission of
Oregon Youth Soccer Association
The Difference Between 6, 7 and 8 Year Olds
It is important to stress the different stages in growth,
development and skills learning that take place over the years. From 6 to
7 is almost a lifetime for kids! All children are individuals and develop
in different ways, and at different stages, so coaches are still compelled
to talk in general terms. For simplicity, consider the 6 year olds as
first year players, and 7 and 8 year olds as the second and third year
players, respectively.
more
Coaching
pre-school, (i.e., under six), children is a lot of fun! Their
enthusiasm knows no bounds, they will turn up for practice in the
most severe weather conditions imaginable and they smile all the
time!!
Developmentally,
however, they are very different from children who are just two or
three years older.
For example:
-
Most
of your players will cry immediately when they get hurt. Some cry
even when they are not hurt,
-
No
matter how loud you shout, or how much they "practice" it, they
can not or will not pass the ball,
-
Somebody will come off the field in need of a toilet. Somebody
will stay on the field when they should be going to the toilet!
-
The
only player to hold a position is the goalkeeper (if you play with
one.) Don't even consider teaching positional play,
-
Twenty
seconds after the start of a game, every player will be within 5
yards of the ball.
-
Several players will slap at the ball with their hands, or pick it
up. Several parents will yell at them not to do that.
-
A
model rocket that is launched from a nearby field will get 99% of
the player's attention. By all means, stop whatever you are doing
and watch for a couple of minutes.
-
During
a season, you will end up tying at least 40 to 50 shoelaces
-
They
will do something that is very funny. Make sure that you laugh.
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