What Children Want
from Their Soccer Coach
~Information
courtesy footy 4 kids, a well known UK- based soccer resource
Everyone involved in soccer coaching needs to understand what children want from their 'ideal' soccer coach. Most importantly, it is important to treat children with respect and not as if they were objects. They like you to listen and take notice of their feelings and opinions.
A recent series of interviews with 140 young athletes in different sports gives an idea of those aspects of coaching which young athletes think are important. The opinions, which were given, may change according to sex, age, and sport; these are just the general comments:
Knowledge
Coaches should know
their sport well and most children prefer coaches who have
participated in the sport. It provides them with credibility.
Personality
Children like
coaches who are friendly, happy, patient, understanding and have a
sense of humour.
Authority
Children like
coaches to be firm but fair, and while boys, particularly, like to
be worked hard they don't like to be shouted at.
Taking personal
interest
As they get older
and more able, many young athletes like coaches to take an
interest in the things they do besides sport.
Reaction to
performance
When they do well,
children like the coach to say "Well done" but they don't like
them to "go over the top"
when they do poorly,
they like to be given some encouragement and told what went wrong.
They want to be told how to correct mistakes and not to be shouted
at or ignored.
Encouragement
Most children,
particularly in team sports, like to have the coach shout
encouragement to them when they are competing.
Decision making
Few young children
express a wish to have a say in the decisions which affect them;
they expect coaches to coach and trust them to make the right
decisions. As they get older and more experienced, they are more
likely to want to be consulted. This may be the case with
13 year old
+ children
Organization
Children like
coaches to be organized and present structured
training
sessions. They also
like them to take responsibility for seeing that they are in the
right place at the right time
Instruction and
feedback
Children do like to
be shown what to do, how to do it and to have mistakes corrected.
In short: teach them!
