How do kids learn in football?

Imagine being at work and your boss is shouting instructions at you whilst you’re trying to concentrate on doing your job.

Then a colleague starts telling you do it a different way.

Then another colleague pipes up and shouts at you to do it another way.

Would be pretty confusing, right?

Not to mention annoying.

So, why does this happen at grassroots football every week

You might think you are helping but you really aren’t.

It just confuses the players and put them off the game.

Kids learn by doing, failing then trying it a different way next time.

If you tell them what to do and they gain success that way then who has actually won?

The child hasn’t because they will become reliant on your instructions, so they technically haven’t learnt anything.

The best way to help them is to just let them play.

You can then wait until the car journey home to ask them questions that might reinforce their learning, and praise them for the things they did well:

‘I thought that pass you did from defence was brilliant’

‘When you were dribbling up the wing and got tackled, what do you think you could do differently in the same situation next time?’

‘I like how hard you tried during the whole game’

‘Instead of booting the ball away, what else do you think you could do?

‘It’s easy to get lost in the emotion of kids football but we should remember that they are there to enjoy it.

There’s nothing enjoyable about being given lots of different instructions and being confused.