Reader,
In recent weeks, I have made the move from coach to parent on the sideline.
As summer came to a close in our part of the world, my five-year-old son suddenly decided he wanted to play football. Now that he has worked out the game has two goals and direction (that took a couple of weeks!), he is really starting to enjoy it, getting more involved.
Throughout the first couple of weeks, he stood back a bit, watched the older kids, hung around the goal and occasionally did a knee slide when either team scored!
He has now roped in a couple of friends from school and they have formed quite the trio, making silly faces, charging around yelling, falling over, trying to make a few tackles and just generally having fun.
Observing this over the first five or six weeks, it struck me how much it reiterated the point of kids’ football.
As I felt myself occasionally wanting to lean in, step forward to ‘help’ and ‘coach’ him at times, I checked myself, realising that me being an overbearing parent, undermining the coaches and giving him some information was the wrong thing to do.
The point of the whole experience was for him to enjoy himself, play with his friends and learn the game.
The good news is he wants to go back every week, and he wants to join a team. He’s also asked me to coach the U6s this year, so I look forward to that challenge! My session plan is simple, loads of time on the ball, plenty of laughter and lots of play.
Three Things to Consider
- When our kids play, we are completely invested in ensuring that they ‘get better’, have a good experience and succeed. It takes real control to step back, observe and ensure it’s their game, not ours.
- The questions we should ask our kids after the session don’t need to be focussed on who won or lost, but they could be about what they learned, what they loved the most or what they’d like to practice at home. Even better, the ride home could be about something completely off-topic!
- We know we won’t see improvement every week. Learning and development is non-linear, there will be ups and downs, there will be challenges and we need to embrace the messiness and chaos that goes with junior football.
One thing to try this week
If you’re a football parent of a young player, take a seat on the sideline, try to stay silent and let them have their experience.
If you’re coaching U5-U8 players, make sure they play the game, avoid queues and where possible, keep teams as small-sided as possible so they get maximum touches on the ball.
One Critical Resource on the Topic
Check out our PDP guide on coaching kids aged 6-12 and don’t forget to head over to the PDP Academy and check out our online coaching course, Introduction to Soccer Coaching with Rob Sherman and a team of global experts.
