One of the reasons my blog is titled "Writes for Kicks" is that in addition to being a writer I'm also a soccer player. I've mentioned in an earlier post that my daughter plays soccer as well.
I am co-coaching her team with another parent and it is really a blast! These little girls are so much fun and really good little soccer players as well. They are still learning and like most 6 and 7-yr. olds they look like a swarm of bees out on the field; but that's o.k. At this age it is about letting them have fun and encouraging them to make decisions for themselves out on the soccer field.
If they are about to thrown the ball in, in the wrong direction, we'll redirect them. Same thing if they are about to take a corner kick and kick it down the field instead of toward the goal. But all-in-all they are so busy racing around out there that they don't really hear you too well anyways. When their teammate is about to take a corner kick and the only players in front of the goal are from the other team, you can scream to them, "Get in front of the goal!" And they will stare at you blank-faced, like a deer in the headlights. "Get in front of the goal!" "GET in FRONT of THE GOAL!"
Honestly, at this age, you are supposed to just let them have fun. Is it frustrating? It can be if you let your competitive nature get in the way of common sense. When I first started coaching my son's teams five years ago I probably gave a bit too much direction and I used to keep score and I wanted to win. The boys did too. Then if they lost they were upset for about two minutes, until they got their snacks and juice boxes and then they were fine. I had to teach myself to focus more on the fun and now second-time around with my daughter, I'm really good at it. So good, that I forget to keep score at all. But the refs don't either at this age so it really doesn't matter. Except to the parents and some of the other coaches.
Last weekend the girls were playing when all of a sudden one of the other team's coaches shouted over to me, "You need to take out number three! She is going to hurt somebody!" He kept repeating this over and over and was all worked up about it.
Number three is fairly aggressive. She's kind of all over the field and she does push a bit. But she is not trying to hurt anybody. She's just still learning and so she will push the other players with her hands. This is not difficult to do since there are about five or six little girls, in a little pack, hacking away at the ball most of the time.
I responded, "When she comes out we will talk to her."
I'm not going to go into great detail about what happened, but suffice it to say my answer was not good enough. He criticized me for "teaching your players to play that way" and demanded that I pull her out RIGHT NOW! Well, if I had any doubt about whether to pull her out or not, I certainly wasn't going to now. This coach was unbelievably competitive. He yelled at his girls non-stop the whole entire game. You would have thought that we were playing the World Cup.
His team outplayed our team. And they won. But I bet our girls had more fun. If I would have pulled this little girl out and told her to stop pushing she would have burst into tears. She hasn't made it through a practice or game without bursting into tears yet. And though this coach was major league upset with her, you could see that all the little girls out on the field were fine. None of them were upset about the way she was playing.
At practice this week, we will continue to teach the girls about staying on their own side of the field, explaining, again, the difference between a goal kick and a corner kick. We'll work on throw-ins and passing to one another. And we'll discuss how you shouldn't push off other players using your hands. And then next weekend we'll head to our soccer game where I will allow the girls to go out and play and be 6 yrs. old.
Then I will go to my game and let my competitive spirit flow, if I so desire. Maybe that other coach should join a team too. Just a thought.