Implementing Positive Practice

By: John Huesing


You have welcomed the new members to your team and are ready to make the best of it. You have a list of things that you want to teach them, ranging from the basics of the sport to the different techniques that individual players can use. You already have everyone's position in mind and know exactly how you want the games to look. All of the children and youth are looking at you for the next direction. It seemed so easy when it all began.

After a specific amount of time, it becomes hard for children and youth to continue to stay on the path that you have so carefully laid out for them. Some may get distracted, others may get bored, and some will get frustrated. After weeks and hours of not getting the perfect position, throwing the wrong ball, or just not being pushed into the right spot, it is easy for kids to loose the interest that they first had in the sport.

The first thing to do is recognize that this reaction after several weeks of practice is natural. Children and youth are naturally curious and are interested in learning about new things. At the same time, it is easy to become distracted if something just isn't working right. You will need to come into the practice with fresh outlooks and new attitudes in order to help the children and youth develop.

One of the ways that you can be sure to keep the attention of the youth is to keep everything with a fresh and new perspective. If you know that they have been working on specific techniques in one way, you might want to try to give them a new insight into the same technique with a different drill. You can also make sure that you are bringing yourself into check and bringing in a positive attitude for the players. This will help them to stay excited about the game and continue to learn and develop their techniques.

If your players are like most, they just want to play the game. Making sure that they stay excited while they are playing and helping to keep them encouraged and offer insights into improvement can help to keep the level of fun that they thought about when they began the sport. It will be part of your job as a coach to make sure that all of your players walk away feeling like they've learned something new and had fun doing it.


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