IN all my years of coaching children and young players, three things I've learnt have stood out in my mind.
Firstly, children have to be able to understand things and to be understood rather than be coached in an atmosphere of fear.
Make it fun for them and let them ask questions (older players are no different).
Secondly, children and young players would much rather be encouraged than corrected.
Basically say "do" to them rather than "don't".
Thirdly, they prefer to be stimulated than instructed.
That means less talk, more action, less queuing, more moving, less drilling, more playing.
Literally we as coaches need to colour their learning.
Increasingly there are more girls playing our sports and we must remember that boys and girls are different.
Firstly, there is a 10% thicker connection between the right (seat of emotions) and left (home of logic) sides of the brain in girls than in boys.
Thus girls tend to multi-task whereas boys need to be coached one thing at a time.
Girls talk to clear their heads while men think before they talk.
This is because access to emotions is easier for girls.
Boys should be encouraged to express emotions even a "little" rather than bottle them up.
The more effective side for boys is the right side but access is harder.
If coaching targeted the right side better learning would be achieved.
Note that in a typical group of 30 players, around nine prefer to learn by visual.
They enjoy communicating through pictures (footballers in action) graphs, diagrams, moving images (video), colour (colour code your pitch and activities) and written information.
Another 10 prefer learning by sound (add music to some activities) including the spoken word (do you talk with your players instead of down to them?).
They latch on to discussions, debates, lectures, orals, radio etc.
The other 11 will learn best if they get the chance to experience it physically, through doing, moving and touching.
They respond to role-play, game plans movement, handling things.
These can be your best players.
They are often seen as "messers) because this group gets most frustrated and are critically disadvantaged if sessions require extended periods of standing in one spot.
Now you know why some say "give us a game, mister" - they simply want to learn.
Players, especially young players, need to know the context of the session.
This is done through whole brain learning - the connecting of left to right.
Thus activities in the warn-up should include movement where the left hand touches the right foot and vice-versa , or they jog left leg over right, right leg back over left, etc, to connect both sides of the brain and open the mind for learning.
Coaches should have also a board at sessions to let players see the "big picture" of the session.
Write down a short summary of the session on this board, explain it before you start, run the session and return to the board at the end to see, or remind players what was achieved.
This is called the learning cycle.
Not time consuming and simple to use.
Remember the brain tends to look for patterns, (games) (with purpose), and sequences, (progression).
Essential elements in assisting learning and memory are repetition, (repeat without repeating - do the same skill using lots of different activities), attaching "pegwords" or "buzzwords" to facts, (the leam's language) using rhymes, music, mnemonics - (first letters of key words used to make other words in a phrase. How did you learn colours of rainbow?) connecting activities, using diagrams, (pictures of star players, magnetic tactics board).
Storage of information is assisted by association, so make sessions enjoyable.
Recall in matches is assisted by colour coding, (cones) repetition, mnemonics, rhymes, patterns and "pegwords".
Do you use these in sessions? Can you?
If not, you will need to find out because when coaching young players, (4-40 years), not only do you need to know the game but you definitely need to "know the child".
Colour their match performances by colouring your coaching!
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