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Laura Cornfoot

Hi,

I coach an U7's team. We are finding it extremely difficult as some of the players really want to be there and others it feels like they just turn up to do whatever they want to do. Cant have a team talk as they constantly talk and distract half of the other kids, drills they do whatever they want (usually kicking the ball as hard as they can or tackling others so they cant complete the drill) and on the pitch they spend a lot of time winding the others up. We have addressred behaviour and even started to include positive behaviour at training sessions as being part of the reason for being awarded the player of the match after our game on Sunday. Hasnt made a difference. 

It really affects everything, training, warming up before a match, playing a match and even when they arent on the pitch they are trying to play fight with others.

Any advice would be more than welcome. 

  • 0

    Hi Laura

    I think this is a common issue with children, we are a boys U10 team and still battle this every week. We are new to coaching so this was a learning curve for us also.

    I was talking to a friend of mine the other week who is a Head Master of a school about this same issue and he suggested that I talked to the children in a common language that they will be used too. He mentioned that the children are at school every day and are constantly being guided through the "values" of the school so bringing this into training with be immediately recognised.

    Their values in school lead to praise/reward and discipline.

    With this approach we created a presentation for the parents and children that highlighted 4 key values that we wanted to maintain in the team. Fun, Respect, Effort and Teamwork, each with some examples of what the represent.

    The children 100% related to these values so we then put in place "Impact" award as well as the standard "Man of the match" award on a Saturday which was for the child who showed "values" through the week in training and in the game.

    The other side of this also meant we were able to implement a discipline practice of Warnings, Timeouts in training to potential loss of game time on a Saturday.

    What I would say so far into this practice is that they relate to it very easily, we have seen some children immediately respond to this structure and pushes us as well as coaches to maintain those value to make it constantly fun and engaging. 

    Good luck

    Tim