Rules about coaching kids

In My Humble Opinion
1

I’ve been coaching youth soccer for about 8 years and have coached probably twice as many teams (I often coach 2 teams a year).

This is a youth recreational soccer league (not club!) in which the leagues are divided up by gender and age (5 and 6 year olds in one league, 7 and 8 in another, 9 and 10 in another, 11 and 12 in another, 13 and 14 in the other).

My overall philosophy is that this is a rec league and the kids are there to have fun and learn some basic soccer skills. I keep practices fun, fast paced and I rarely run a drill that requires them to line up and wait. I spend little time lecturing, especially to the younger kids because I realize they have an attention span of about 1 minute. If a kid needs special guidance, I’ll talk to the individual 1:1 during the drill and explain “hey, next time try to do it this way” and send them back into it.

Since I spend so little time lecturing, especially to a group, that if I have a disruptive kid in the group I’ll start by asking them to quiet down. If they don’t, or if the disruption happens multiple times, I would have them “go touch a goal post”, meaning they would need to run across the field (40 yards away) touch the goal post and come back. Often that was all it took.

I’ve recently learned this is corporal punishment and isn’t allowed. I was told that we need to be teaching the kids that exercise is fun, not something to be dreaded. So making them do pushups, situps, running laps, etc. as some sort of disciplinary action is strictly verboten.

Part of this I agree with. Making kids run to exhaustion for mistakes or as punishment is not a good way to coach. I believe coaching should be 99% encouragement and 1% corrective. But there is that 1%. Nothing extreme. I’m not making anyone run laps around the field. At worst it is an 80 yard jog. Not a sprint and it isn’t onerous, at least to me.

So am I out of line in my thinking? Am I really teaching kids that exercise is to be dreaded by making them “go touch a goalpost”? In my mind, this means I can’t do any conditioning training, like windsprints or even pushups and situps because I’ve met no one that actually LIKES windsprints and very few that like pushups and situps.

I need some perspective on this as I’m really ticked off about this.

2

I used to coach kids cricket and think what you are doing is fine. I used to get the disruptive kid to walk to somewhere about that distance away and then walk back. I called it timeout. Usually the threat was enough to get some quiet when necessary.

3

I don’t think there is any problem with making all the kids do sprints or whatever. The issue is that you aren’t supposed to make the only the “bad” kids run sprints as punishment.

I teach English. I can require all my kids to read, but I would assign a specific kid a particularly boring book to read just to punish them. I don’t want them to think about reading as something you would only do if forced.

That said, I think you can make kids walk if you call it a “cool down” or a “time out” because then the walking isn’t a punishment, but a constructive opportunity for them to get their head together, or to burn off excess energy to help them focus. The physical activity isn’t the punishment, the separation from the group is the punishment. The walking is just because you don’t have a place to put them.

4

I suspect you left out two letters and an apostrophe :).

5

At the next coaches’ meeting, ask if the organizers have a strategy in mind that you can use to quiet down an unruly kid.

Or you can use “take a lap” as a way to introduce the idea that physical activity can be a positive way to burn off negative emotions and excess energy, as well as a way to regain focus. If you frame it right, walking around the field turns from a punishment to a positive lifestyle choice that sticks with them. Same thing, different intention.

6

Assign the unruly children term papers. Maybe they’ll think twice about giving you any lip after having to analyze the relative merits of the 4-4-2 and the 4-5-1.

7

I’m supposed to reward good behavior and not encourage bad behavior. The advice someone gave was that at practice he tells the kids they can either work hard and pay attention and as a result they will get to do a “fun” drill, or if they don’t they will work on the planned activity. It wasn’t a punishment, but just regular old drills. This was supposed to give the kids control of which activity they were doing.

I like your idea and Snooooopy’s cracked me up. It isn’t like I’m getting lip from any of the kids, they are just disrupting the flow of the lesson. I tell the kids at the start, if you don’t want to hear what I have to say, go practice juggling or dribbling or just get some water. I tell them I’ve heard enough coaches babble on that I know it can be painfully boring. I’m not offended if they don’t want to be there, but just don’t be disruptive to others that do.

8

Some people respond to positive rewards. Some don’t.
Just like some people thrive because of a fear of failure, and some thrive because of a drive for success.

When I was coaching, I viewed part of my job as figuring out what each athlete responded to, and using that to help them grow and succeed.
-D/a

9

Did you ever use any form of punishment to help motivate them?

10

Do you know whether this is official policy, versus just what some other coach or parent has told you? Maybe it’s their interpretation of written policy. Can you get a second opinion?

Sending a kid to go touch a post and come back as a form of time-out doesn’t seem an issue to me. Obviously there’s a limit somewhere, but what you wrote in your OP seems optimal to me.

11

I have used the “touch a post” method. I often need it to calm myself down when one kid is the cause of constant practice disruption. However, it also a sign that I have not set up my drills right.

Oh yeah, we aren’t supposed to call them drills either.

:wink:

For the younger ones I have also told them to go discuss with their parents the proper behavior at practice.

12

This is official policy.

“Abusive behaviors not allowed in AYSO include corporal punishment, punishing players by making them run laps or denying water, bullying or fighting.”

I checked with the league coach coordinator and he said it was not allowed as well.

13

I agree that if the kids are getting distracted and disruptive during a drill that the drill isn’t setup right, which is why I mentioned that I never have them waiting in a line during those situations. But there are times when I need to talk to them as a group, and those are the times I have them leave the group if requests for them to behave aren’t heeded.

14

As with most youth sports, the parents are the problem.
Seems you have been nailed by parents that can’t / won’t control their children & think nothing of their child ruining it for all the others & 'How dare you punish my child?"

What you are doing is way milder than any youth coach I have ever seen…

IMO, have a team parents meeting, explain what you have here & if anyone of the them is not OK with that, quit & go coach ‘club’ level.

You can only hope the other parents straighten out the idiots with their impossible conditions for you.

If that does not happen, and you won’t draw the line, or leave that team & want to coach only these levels, then you get to do just that and how you will live with it I have no idea.

One size does not fit all & you know that, not all kids respond well to the same thing…

Good luck.

15

Grrrrrrr. Now I see where this shit begins. One of my friends was working in a large multinational corp, and regularly gets similarly stupid directions from the corporate HR department. One recent one was how to handle it if someone is regularly late for staff meetings and firing their ass wasn’t allowed. Surprisingly, so was having them sit somewhere so you can glare at them throughout the meeting, because “we have to let them be comfortable in making mistakes.”

OK, the problem is that some coaches have abused kids by making them run laps until not only they died, but their parents did as well because they made a tiny mistake. So, running is out. But the idea that only positive reinforcement will work is also stupid. As you say, you need something to handle that 1%. (OK, admit you’re exaggerating, not one ever is that good.)

16

If I’ve given the impression that I was disciplined or asked to stop this practice by any official because of an official complaint against me I’m sorry. That is not the case. I was going through the safety certification again and I came across the line above and asked about the touching the goalpost scenario. That was when I was told it was not allowed.

My assistant coach suggested I just keep my cell phone with me and if kid gets out of line I call the parents and have them drive out and deal with it. He was joking and I would never do something like that. It would be a huge nuisance. But the thought of making a parent do that means maybe the parent would end up complaining to the league that this policy is stupid.

17

Sure. I coached middle school, high school, and club volleyball. I’d hold serving drills. Depending on the skill level of the team and the focus of the drill, I’d sometimes have a rule that serving a ball into the net or out meant you had to run a lap of the gym.

Both items are exercise. You had to run after a ball, regardless of the results. But running the lap was a ‘punishment.’

On the flip side, I had some drills that my girls just loved. We did a drill called “5-up”. It was an individual drill, with the other players shagging balls and rooting the one player on. I would toss/hit balls all over the place, and the player had to keep them in the air. I’d get more aggressive with the placement, starting with soft tosses that they had to run after and ending with strong hits close to them. This was a lot of work for them, but they tended to love it. So it could be a reward for players who performed well in earlier drills.
-D/a

18

They can walk over to the goal posts and touch them.

I think its a stupid rule. I think your technique for dealing with the behavior is wonderful - it gets the distraction out of the way for a few minutes - and more often then not, you are probably done with the lecture. They don’t need to “run laps” they just need a time out - which they get by walking or running to the goal post and coming back.

And if the can’t handle a saunter to the goal post, they don’t belong even in park and rec soccer.

19

Everyone responds to positive reinforcement, but not all the time.

Behaviour management is a combination of positive reinforcement and sanctions.

You praise children who behave well - “Well done Johnny, look everyone, see how nicely Johnny is sitting”. “Well done Jessica, well done Anthony, well done Dieter”

You point out poor behaviour, without drawing attention to individuals - " Oh dear, it seems that some of us don’t remember how to sit quietly. That’s not fair on those who can remember. If you’re not sure what you should be doing, look around at some of the children who are sitting nicely"

You point out poor behaviour, and draw attention to an individual - " Casey, are you doing what everyone else is doing?" or “Hmm, I can see that everyone except Casey was paying attention. Maybe someone can remind him.”

You give a chance for a child to correct their behaviour - “Casey, you’re not doing what I have asked you to do. You need to sit down, cross your legs and arms and pay attention.”

You implement sanctions - “Casey, I have given you plenty of chances to behave, you will be spending 5 minutes of your playtime with me in silence.”

And then sanctions escalate.

What you need to do is find out the permissible sanctions within your organisation and then use them appropriately. The children need to be reminded of the behaviour you expect from them every time you teach them, and you need to be consistent.

You never use tasks that would be part of a lesson as punishment, so I will never ask a child to do lines or any reading as punishment because you do not want them associated with punishment. Similarly in PE I wouldn’t use collecting equipment or physical activities as punishment (although I have seen it done by older teachers).

The coaches I have worked with in primary schools have always used timeouts and sending the children in from the field as sanctions. Not being able to participate in a fun activity is usually enough of a deterrent that the threat of it is enough.

Behaviour management is a massive topic, and I have only got experience with 5-11 year olds, but I have worked with children with behavioural and emotional disorders, and a couple that were prone to violent outbursts and as long as you are fair and consistent they will generally behave… However, it does mean that some children won’t like you… But you’re not their friend so it doesnt matter.

20

I don’t think you can use the same guidelines and coaching strategies for a 5 year old and a 14 year old. Telling a kindergartener to take a lap for being disruptive is cruel but telling a teenager to take a lap is constructive.

However, seeing as how this league is mostly focused on younger players and it’s recreational in every sense of the word, I can understand how telling someone to take a lap would be frowned upon. I would take issue with a high school making rules against taking laps.

In this case, telling the kid to go grab a knee on the sideline is just as effective (if not moreso) than telling him/her to go grab a post on the other end of the field.