Youth. are. not. mini. adults.

Something that I’ve learned in my career as a coach is that youth athletes are not mini adults. We cannot expect the production rate of an 11 year old to be the same as an 18 year old. In turn, we cannot expect the work rate of an 18 year old be the same as a 25 year old. So, I ask you: Why are we treating these kids like adults? 

I’m going to pose this question to both parents of players and coaches of players: Do you ever get frustrated or disappointed that your player/child did not perform a task to the best of their abilities? Do you know that they can “do better” and get mad when they don’t? Sure. Of course we do. We get mad when we ask them to do something and instead - they are juggling, joking, thinking about Fortnight, etc. right? 

Well. Kids don’t process information the same way adults do. It’s really that simple. Adults are often referred to as “creatures of habit”…we’ve all heard that right? We as humans develop an ability to adapt & control our behavior and thoughts to align with our goals and plans. Popular theories of cognitive control suggest that we are able to do this through whats called proactive regulation of behavior and its done through our practice of inhibition of inappropriate thoughts and actions. (and thank goodness for that!) Some may hypothesize that children engage in these same processes but just aren’t as good at it. This could be the case, but Chris Catham of Developing Intelligence shows us that children’s cognitive style is fundamentally different than adults : being more reactive than proactive - even when the future is predictable! Kids are constrained by immature cognitive control and tend to react only as events to occur - even if they are aware of the outcomes! 

What does all of this mean? TL,DR: Kids are acting in the present, don’t have enough practice with planning, behavior inhibition, or seeing the big picture - because they are developing and behave differently than adults. So, they aren’t able to be task oriented or as proactive (inhibitory) with their thoughts as adults are. They are this way because of a different processing/regulating style. So, if we keep treating them like mini adults, we are not encouraging the shift necessary for them to grow at a faster rate. We are just perpetuating the frustration! 

Anyway- my goal in this post is to highlight to us as coaches and parents that sometimes WE need to be flexible and alter OUR coaching style in order to get through to our kids. 

I have one player who stands out in my mind while I write this. Our first several sessions (like 5 or 6!) I just could not figure out how to connect.. I felt like everything that I asked of the player was falling on deaf ears…. But every once in a while I would see this kid shine! I felt like I was failing this specific player because, I guess, deep down I expected to say “jump” and this kid would say “HOW HIGH?!” But that’s not how it works is it?

I had to alter my conversation style- my approach, my expectations. I had to slow our sessions down and build this player’s trust. I started to ask this player what they wanted to work on, gave back a little of the control - made it more of a democracy. I asked often what the player was good at… Where they think they shine on the pitch. I asked about the times when they felt like boss on the field. And why they think they are good at those things (whattya know - this player thinks they are good at them because they have practiced them..) I slowly but surely boosted this players confidence. It takes time and flexibility from me to build this player’s confidence and it took their trust in the process. I had to give up some control and be little more flexible in the repetitions that we were going to get in that session. We focus more on quality than quantity.

 I think it’s critical for us to constantly reevaluate the ways in which we are teaching our youth players. We can’t just learn one approach and expect every kid to react the same way to it. We have to teach our kids to be flexible and dynamic through our example of providing dynamic and flexible coaching. 

Thanks for your support and thank you for reading my thoughts. Until next time. - Melissa Warner