understanding how your children think

As any soccer coach will tell you, understanding the game of soccer is a piece of cake compared to understanding the children who play it!

But if you want to keep your children interested at practice sessions, help them to learn and keep misbehaviour to a minimum you must at least try to understand what's going on inside their heads.

Failure to take these psychological factors into account when designing practices doesn’t just result in disinterested, 'difficult' children. The coach will feel frustration (and could even feel angry) when their children insist on messing about when they have spent ages designing what they thought was a perfect practice session!

This often leads into a vicious circle of children trying to do things they just can’t do, the coach getting frustrated and criticising the children for not 'concentrating', children trying even harder to do things they can’t do, the coach getting even more frustrated, etc., etc.

This sequence usually ends with the children switching off and amusing themselves by throwing mud, kicking each other or chatting amongst themselves.

Has this ever happened to you? It has certainly happened to me a few times!