Children are NOT mini-adults

Recently I've needed to take a couple of months away from coaching. This was following a rough grassroots season with a team in a local youth league. The season was marred by a number of circumstances which created a challenging environment for me as a coach and for the players. So under the inspiration from a article I've seen Nigel Latimer write, I thought I'd spout a few words around coach-athlete and parent-athlete communication. This blog will also transcend into delivering feedback to young players and how we can incorporate challenges into this which is stuff I learnt and experienced last year.

It's important to remember that what we say and how we say it can have a strong impact on a players social and psychological development. So full consideration should be given to every piece of knowledge we impart on children, this way each session can maximise effectiveness. However, many coaches have seen other coaches, parents, players teammates consistently put young players under pressure through words they say. Treating them as mini adults. 

For example, How many times have you seen an adult criticise a childs actions using phrases like:

• Sense Danger - Young players are relatively new to the game, so why are adults consistently asking them to 'sense danger' and  'read the game'. 
• Switching Off - For some reason, some adults genuinely expect a child to focus and play exemplary halves with football with no 'lapses in concentration' and avoid 'going to sleep'. You only need to ask a teacher to gain a insight into how difficult this can be. Young players switching off has to be expected occasionally and mistakes are part of the learning process of the game. 
• Desperation - Children are sensitive and often this type of evocative language is reserved for moments of desperation such as those 'last ditch tackles' and 'match saving blocks'. Many children vary in their understanding of such terms but often understand the feeling of desperation. At a time when desperation is high during a game then often a child's emotions increase and thus we have to be careful about what we say. 
• Marking and Tackling - The amount of times I've heard young players being criticised by coaches for 'going missing in big games', 'don't give him a sniff', 'dealing with their danger men', 'put your body on the line' and 'doing just enough'. Nine times out of ten the young players end up being baffled and confused. 

This, amongst many other examples I could give, goes to show just a few of the ways many people view young players as mini-adults. 

For us adults, understanding football is a straightforward concept and one we're incredibly passionate about. Although, we are able to rely on our maturity and experience within the game so we can understand situations pretty quickly. In essence, we ooze experience in certain situations and we often mistake our experience for common knowledge. 

Consider our players on the other hand, who simply do not have the same luxury of experience. They're not mini-adults. Although many do, we can't expect children to behave like us. Neither can we expect them to understand the same language as us. 

The game that we see is not the one they do. We see the game very differently to young players. Whilst we may often fantasize about our teams playing spectacular Pep Guardiola-esque tikki-taka or fluid attacking football like the Galacticos, the harsh reality is that a young players game looks very different. 

Surely at the golden ages of 5-11, we can't expect to replicate the skills and behaviours of Lionel Messi, Cristiano Ronaldo or Andres Iniesta. It's vital to take this into consideration when supporting these young players with our feedback.

Lets put this anecdotally from myself last year,  you're on the touchline on a chilly Sunday morning. You've just spotted something you want to discuss with your team. Once you've called them in, you've outlined what needs to be done and given your feedback. Bread and butter stuff. 

Give minutes later, it's dejavue, the same thing has occurred it and quickly becomes clear that the players haven't listened. 

This is where many lose patience but this could well be because they've simply not quite found their level. Don't underestimate the importance of pitching your feedback at THEIR level . Needless to say, it's crucial to understand your players and attempt to understand how they respond to feedback. This is all a area that took me a long time to work on last season. 

But what we can do is use challenges as a vehicle to reinforce your feedback. Young players love a good challenge. So for example, a young players close-range finishing may need work so why nit get them to use positive self-talk in their performance to challenge them and ask 'Can I score with one-touch when I'm near the opponent's goal?'. 

Children love this technique because they love being challenged. Maybe, the teams reaction to losing the possession needs improvement, so why not asking them something like 'When I lose the ball, can I get nearer to the goal than my opponent?'.  Although, this sort of thing can be tough for coaches, let alone players to understand so we do have to be careful to not overload them. 

Simples. Hopefully you're all still with me after this blog. I felt that this was a necessary topic to bring up after challenges that I faced last season. I've enjoyed learning and putting techniques like challenging my players within my feedback in practice. So hopefully this blog was also of some benefit to some coaches out there. Please do get in touch if you'd like to discuss similar issues as I would be fascinated to hear if others have experienced similar stuff.