"The best advice my parents ever gave me was what they never said" - Ferenc Puskas (one of the best players of all time)
Let your kids learn life lessons. Support their interests, but don’t interfere with their experiences.
“Children only have one childhood and it’s our privilege (as coaches and parents) to be a part of that childhood; therefore as custodians we cannot fail them” (Mairs & Shaw ix).
Parents, always remember to ask your kids the right questions:
- Are you enjoying it?
- Are you learning?
- Do you feel like you are improving?
- When you play do you find it easy or difficult?
- Do you feel any pressure to play well?
Becoming overly concerned with performance levels or attempting to evaluate how they are doing in comparison to other players is futile, as the players’ progress and performance levels will individually fluctuate throughout their formative years.
Click here to hear a free sample of Coach Traub's Parenting in Athletics(After the Game).
How soccer parents can avoid the trap of "
The next big thing"
What the best soccer coaches around the world are doing
Development in youth soccer
To keep score or not
Talking to kids while playing
Taking a break from training
The Development Process
(Claudio Reyna – Soccer America interview)
Reyna said four key points outline his US National Development Curriculum.
- Development over winning – “Our players are naturally competitive. We don’t need to ramp that up anymore. The whistle blows, and our kids want to win. That’s one of our strengths and we’re proud of it. But if we’re manipulating and thinking winning over development, we’re making a huge mistake. We’re short-cutting the development of players.”
- Quality Training – (Coaches should) make every session a quality session, come prepared, don’t waste time. Keep players focused and active. If you have 12 one-hour sessions in a month, and you waste 10 minutes each session, you can waste two sessions in a month.
- Age appropriate – Providing players with too much, too soon leads to confusion and hurts development. We don’t need coaches teaching 8-year-olds zonal defending or an offside trap, just like we don’t teach a second grader calculus. Kids learn rapidly, but at different stages in their lives.
- Have fun and inspire your players
Fire FC adopts a long-term player development model for our players. This model comes form the overwhelming amount of research in recent years, which supports the 10,000 rule.
Great books to read
"Outliers" by Malcolm Gladwell
"The Talent Code" by Daniel Coyle
"Bounce" by Mathew Syed
"Mindset" by Carol Dweck
"Leadership and Self-Deception" by The Arbinger Institute