Caching youth sports requires patience and emotional intelligence. The following coaching tips outline some techniques to improve communication with athletes in youth sports today.
Although coaching may have been more of a one-way street in the past, today many coaches achieve their best results with open and honest communication.
When we think about the iconic coaches in sport, it’s typical to picture those coaches we see in movies giving pep talks during pivotal moments. However, the reality is that coaching extends far beyond the pivotal pep talk.
Some of the best coaches would agree that most of their time is spent consistently building up the confidence and skills of athletes. In this way, coaches often work on their craft everyday, just like their athletes.
In this blog we’ll give you several coaching tips that will help coaches with the fundamentals of coaching youth athletes. This includes:
- Keeping it Simple
- Being Patient and Allowing for Mistakes
- Coaching Skills by Re-framing Practice as Play
- Adjusting Your Coaching Style for Different Types of Athletes
- Allowing Children to Feel They Have Autonomy
- Treating Athletes with Respect
- Valuing Athlete Feedback and Input
- Coaching Tips for Positive Feedback and Constructive Criticism
- The 3 Steps to Delivering Positive Feedback
- Keeping an eye out for bullying
Coach Kids? Keep it Simple
There are a lot of variables in every sport. And the biggest of all, is the competition. The more time your athletes spend thinking about the competition, the less time they can focus on what it is they have to do.
The same can be said for all “future actions.” If a gymnast spends all their time thinking about a difficult dismount on the beam, they are much more likely to have an issue with the simple moves leading up to the dismount. That’s because when athletes focus on future actions, they lose focus on their execution in the present moment.
To prevent your athletes from losing focus on the present moment, you have to simplify things.
Staying Focused Like The Pros
This is one of the best coaching tips you’ll come across for coaching youth sports, and you may be surprised to learn that the pros use it too. 6-time Super Bowl winner, Coach Bill Belichik accomplishes this by telling his players to simply “do your job.” This means staying in the moment and focusing on the small details instead of getting side-tracked by all the other variables outside the moment.
When it comes to coaching kids, simplifying what needs to be done is paramount. Older athletes have the advantage of muscle memory to fall back on, but younger athletes are starting from scratch. This means, if youth athletes take their proverbial eye off the ball, they don’t have the muscle memory to take over and swing.
For this reason, coaching kids is like building the foundation to a house. When you’re building the foundation, you don’t worry about the trim or the paint colour, you just focus on framing and concrete. So, coaches must break their instructions down to the basics.
For some situations this means breaking movements down to a few simple steps. For other situations, keeping it simple could mean comparing an athletic maneuver to a simple shape.
As you coach, you may also want to keep an ear open for an athlete’s interests. Some kids get a lot of enjoyment out of relating the skills they learn to the pop-culture they’re interested in.
Be Patient and Allow for Mistakes
Mistakes are part of the learning process, so coaches should be supportive and understanding when athletes fail to execute their moves properly.
Reacting negatively and demanding perfection is an easy way to push kids away from sport. Part of the reason it’s “easy” is because sometimes negative reactions just leap out of us. It’s human nature to be disappointed by failure. But good coaches need to learn the art of patience.
When coaches have a patient mind-set, it becomes easier to see that mistakes will ultimately lead to better performance.
Patient coaches create a calming presence for athletes which helps them maintain composure. If children feel too much pressure, they tense up and become hesitant which is not how you bring out the best performance in an athlete.
Coaching Skills by Re-framing Practice as Play
Children learn best with play so coaches should re-frame practice and drills as a way for athletes to play.
That’s not to say that coaching kids should be a free-for-all. Of course, structure is essential for athlete development. However, you should allow athletes to be playful within the confines of your practice.
Consider adding a free form element to a drill so that athletes can add their own playful twist after completing a series of pre-determined moves.
Furthermore, after a set of difficult drills, make sure to give your athletes some free time to practice skills they enjoy. If you think the athlete is interested, you may want to encourage them to reiterate a few of the difficult skills they’ve just learned as part of their free time.
Out of all the coaching tips in this blog, don’t underestimate the power of play.
Adjust Your Coaching Style for Different Types of Athletes
Some athletes seem to be born with unshakeable confidence while others seem to wilt under criticism. One of the most important skills a coach can develop, is being able to adjust their coaching style to match each athlete.
Applying a one-size-fits-all coaching style isn’t going to bring out the best in all of your athletes. So, great coaches should develop several coaching styles. Once they cultivate these styles, they must learn how to identify an athlete’s learning style and apply the appropriate coaching method.
Allow Children to Feel They Have Autonomy
Children should feel like it’s their choice to play sports. So, they should feel as if they have some choice in the actions they take.
This doesn’t mean letting children design routines or drills. Instead it means that children need to want to complete a routine or drill.
When your coaching, remember that you’re not only teaching the correct skills, you’re also fostering a passion for sport. And one of the best ways to foster passion, is to encourage athletes.
Sir Alex Ferguson, the legendary soccer coach for Machester United, says “there is nothing better than hearing ‘well done.’ Those are the two best words ever invented. You don’t need to use superlatives.” So, be sure to include them in your daily coaching regimen.
On the contrary, if an athlete’s performance is commonly met with criticism, they will eventually lose interest in the coaches words. Not only will their performance suffer, but they may give up on sport all together.
Treat Your Athletes with Respect
It may seem like a no brainer but treating an athlete with respect is key to earning their trust. And when an athlete trusts their coach, they’re much more likely to value their input and communicate clearly with them.
Treating your athletes with respect starts at a young age. Naturally, kids begin to learn to value themselves during their formative, child-hood years. This means that coaches can play a big part in informing a child’s view of themselves.
With this in mind, stop for a moment to consider how you interact with young athletes. Are there nicknames you give young athletes? If so, are they positive, encouraging nicknames? There’s a good chance they are. If not, consider changing those nicknames to more encouraging and positive nicknames that can improve an athlete’s self-image.
On the flipside, how do you interact with young athletes when the make mistakes? Do you ever call them names? Of course, most coaches would say they don’t call their athletes names when they make mistakes. But consider all the variations of reactions people have when kids make mistakes.
It is common for a person to say that a kid making a mistake is “cute” or “silly” . However, it’s important to remember that the child making a mistake is trying their best.
If a kid hears their coach say that their effort was “cute” or “silly”, they’re likely to feel inferior to the other athletes around them. They may even feel frustrated that they aren’t taken more seriously.
So, coaches have to think carefully when interacting with their athletes. Feedback should encourage the positive development of an athlete’s performance as well as their self-image.
Value Athlete Feedback and Input
The best coaching tips may come from athletes, but only if coaches listen to their feedback. Coaches that treat coaching like a one way street are bound to miss out on the answers to some of their coaching issues. More importantly, coaches that don’t listen to athletes are bound to lose their athletes’ attention.
This principle is closely related to respecting athletes. When you value athlete feedback and input, athletes naturally feel like they have some control in their development. As we discussed above, that feeling of control or autonomy helps fuel a passion for sport.
More importantly, when you value athlete feedback you’re helping youth understand that their voice and opinions matter.
As a coach, you’re likely going to anticipate the feedback of young athletes. Of course, you may be surprised by some of the insight that young athletes share. But more often than not, athletes will be reiterating things that you’ve already heard from other kids.
Regardless of whether or not the feedback is original, coaches should make the most of this opportunity.
When athletes provide feedback, they are opening a communication pathway.
Good coaches use this communication opportunity to provide positive reinforcement, or add some helpful insight.
Coaching Tips for Positive Feedback and Constructive Criticism
It’s already been mentioned here; the effects of positive feedback can be deeply beneficial during the formative years of a young athlete’s life. But providing positive feedback doesn’t mean ignoring problem areas of an athlete’s performance.
When good coaches see an issue in their athlete’s performance, they act quickly. Good coaches want their athletes to succeed long-term so constructive feedback is key.
3 Steps to Delivering Constructive Feedback
1) In order to give constructive feedback, coaches should identify something that the athlete did correctly prior to making their mistake and lead by focusing on the strength and importance of the thing they did well.
2) Then, coaches should explain the issue they observed and why it’s an issue. Once that’s clearly communicated, coaches should explain what they athlete should do to fix the issue.
3) Lastly, reiterate the strength previously observed and finish by explaining the positive actions athletes can expect by acting on the criticism.
By delivering criticism between two compliments, coaches are able to dull the impact of their criticism. This helps keep athletes focused on the benefit of improving their skills. Instead of focusing solely on their error, athletes can recognize that they are performing well, and can even improve their performance if they listen to the coach’s advice.
Stay Alert for Signs of Bullying and Depression
Mental health initiatives across the world are revealing the negative affects of bullying and depression. As former athletes share their stories, we’re beginning to learn how bullying in sports can impact a youth’s mental health. For this reason, it’s important for coaches to stay alert for signs of bullying and depression.
Sports provide an amazing opportunity for kids to have fun while learning to collaborate and sharpen their creative minds. In order to preserve this opportunity, coaches, administrators and parents should all learn how to deal with bullying in sports.
In the end, the best coaching tips are about strengthening the communication channels between coaches and athletes. The stronger the bond between athlete and coach, the more the athlete trusts their coach’s word. With that trust, good coaches always find a way to make athletes recognize and believe in their own abilities. That’s why Uplifter is passionate about streamlining administrative duties with club software. When a club’s administrative tasks are automated, coaches can focus on inspiring athletes. And that creates a better tomorrow for today’s youth.
