Being perceived as talented is great, but it comes with some challenges...

We have a habit of labelling things in modern society and we like to do this; frequently when making comparisons of one against another. They are often subjective by nature, “I think Messi was better than Pele”, and on many occasions, never even something that can be quantified. But this extends from harmless pub chat to labelling in schools and sport – “this young person is talented or gifted” (whatever they mean) and therefore better than others. But what is the impact of being labelled this as a young person? Too often we do not see the impact through their eyes and what it actually may mean to them. Let’s look at this using football as the example but you could replace football with any sport or indeed school subject.

1.     From an early age being labelled as talented increases expectations and they come to realise that when playing games the pressure is on them entirely; because they are talented and others aren’t. More becomes expected every game and can build and build.

2.     The knock-on effect for their own self-perception can become dangerous if others around them are deemed less talented by themselves or adults, bordering on developing an air of arrogance in many as that comparison kicks in.   

3.     Parents can have inflated expectations, and whilst that child may be happy just playing football with their friends, the parents habitually expect massive things and game winning performances every week.  

4.     Internal pressure on their own ability creates added weight with the child feeling that if they don’t produce these performances every week that their parents will stop loving them. This can stem from positive feedback only coming from a positive performance. This is produced from within but is a dangerous feeling to have for a young person and is linked to causes of stress and anxiety.

5.     Being talented in one sport leads to frequently being talented in others, using athleticism and game skills as the core underpinning of skill application. However, this may not always be the case, it could be domain specific. Expectations from teachers and peers because of a talent in one sport can lead to increased pressure when playing others.

6.     Sibling rivalry can have a major effect in a family dynamic. One sibling that gets praised for being mediocre in a sport (“trying their hardest”) leads to even greater pressure for the talented sibling to perform every week. There are no allowances for anything different.

7.     The constant need for approval and basing their own self-worth on what other people think of them is a dangerous place to be. It can lead to greater anxiety, because they never fail at anything, and don’t want to let others down. Managing this carefully is vital.

8.     In fact, the opportunity to ‘learn to fail’ is sometimes missed because of this pursuit of excellence. Failing is a huge part of learning and feeling like its ok to shoot for the moon and sometimes miss is essential. However, we need to create an environment that makes it ok for this ‘miss’ to happen.

9.     A feeling of jealousy from others towards them is something that is often passed by and helping young people deal with the feelings and comments from peers is something we can help them manage.

10.  Constantly managing high expectations is incredibly difficult. There are two options; if they perform great, that is expected, and if they don’t that is a failure. It is either neutral or negative. 

11.  The journey towards becoming an elite footballer is incredibly difficult and can also give a false sense of security. Being labelled as ‘talented’ from a young age just means they are talented today, not necessarily in five or ten years time. Helping them understand the journey and its challenges is important.

12.  Equally, young people are often deemed talented within their peer group, but what if that peer group is below average? Compared to their peers they are talented, but put them in the wider world and they become average. Having had a build up of expectations and self-worth about being talented to then see this come shattering down is difficult and tough to manage and internalise as a child.

The role of a teacher or coach is to help the child; help them understand the nature of the dynamics above and what it may mean to be talented (today) compared to your peers. Emphasising the need for hard work, recognising that it is ok not to be amazing every game and developing a growth mindset (see Dweck, 2006) in young people is essential life skills to help them with ongoing challenges.

The journey towards long-term talent is never easy and dealing with disappointment is inevitable. Helping them understand this may come in different forms is important; this could be getting de-selected from a professional football club, not being selected by the manager to play or dealing with a bad injury. But it is going to happen at some stage – we don’t always win.

As a parent, regardless of their performances, achievements or otherwise, they just want to know you still love them.

'8 questions' to consider before the new season...

“I think making mistakes and discovering them for yourself is of great value, but to have someone else to point out your mistakes is a shortcut of the process.” (Shelby Foote)

For a coach, to be reflective and have self-awareness is incredibly important. It helps you understand where you come from, what has influenced you and appreciate your own actions. I came across a few of the questions below, linked to teaching, that can have great influence for your own development as a coach and before the new season kicks in it might be worth considering some of these. Ultimately, time spent thinking about the answers will help make it better for the learner.

1.   Why are my most powerful sessions powerful?

You go to coaching, deliver a session and the children love it. You go home feeling electric, on a self-fulfilled legal high having organised some learning that gave some young people a wonderful experience and a great time.

Other weeks you deliver a different session, they aren’t well received, the children act up causing you more stress and you leave feeling deflated.

So what’s the difference? How can you take what works from the good sessions and extend to others? Was it you, your manner and approach? Was it the practice?

2.   What simple tools are available to me to help personalise instruction?

Learning is a fluid process and different fads come and go but one thing that will never leave is personalised learning for individual learners.

Providing learners with the right environment to learn, whether this is through small group work to develop a tactic or strategy, the type of questions you choose to ask to different children, or using different methods of assessment to chart the development of the players is bang on current trend – a trend that is not going to go away. So what are the ‘easy to access’ tools that can help with personalising learning?

Choice boards – http://www.teachingwithsimplicity.com/2013/07/choice-board.html

Exit slips - http://www.readwritethink.org/professional-development/strategy-guides/exit-slips-30760.html

Flipped training ground - http://www.washington.edu/teaching/teaching-resources/flipping-the-classroom/

Project-based learning - http://www.ascd.org/publications/educational_leadership/feb08/vol65/num05/Project-Based_Learning.aspx

Self-directed learning - http://www.selfdirectedlearning.com/teaching-self-directed-learning-tools.html

Some of these ideas increase in complexity quite quickly but having a look at a variety of concepts and matching them with your situation is the key. If you are volunteer coach, with a full-time job and a family, you may choose a different option to a full-time coach whose job is to develop players.

3.   Where did I waste time last season?

There is something you do that wastes time and it may not be obvious. Letting a quick conversation with a parent eat into valuable practice time? Move cones around mid-session for different pitches that could have been planned better before? Start putting children in bibs once they are ready to play? Talked too long to the group on an intervention?

Try to highlight them, or work with your co-coach to spot them, and take them out the equation.

4.   Where did my best ideas come from?

The practices and games that really flow, that captivate the attention of the players and hook them into a feeling of enjoyment and progression, where did they come from?

Your colleagues? A course or in-service training event? Books, the internet or social media? Other coaches you have seen work?

Select the ones that worked, do more of them, and less of the ones that didn’t. If in doubt, ask the children what they thought.

5.   How can I use my strengths?

You may not be organised but you might be incredibly creative when making up practices. Your sessions might not look neat and tidy but you understand the game is messy and therefore vital for learning and development.

You have a personality that inspires children to want to try really hard but you aren’t so good at reflecting on what went well within the session.

So how can you use what you do naturally well to your advantage, recognise the other parts and work on them, to improve your overall performance?

6.   How do I respond to stress?

This question appears a strange one but you know the season won’t be without it and if you have run a team or coached for a long time, you know it occurs! So what strategy do you employ when times are tough?

Do you shout at the children more often? Take it out on your own son or daughter more than the other players? Play the weaker players even less if you are trying to hang on for a draw? Think more about your coaching and game day plans? Complicate things a lot more than they need to be?

Be aware of how you respond in pressure situations and challenge yourself to act differently before it happens, pre-empting your behaviour and ensuring that it fits with your philosophy and goals for the season.

If giving equal playing time for children is what you stand for as a coach, find tactics to ensure this still happens in the games that might be closer in score line. How can you manage your own expectations before the event, and that of others?

7.   What has changed since last year?

It is highly likely that a few things will have moved on, both from a process perspective in terms of how you go about running a team and possibly the actual foundations of this too – the format of football, the approach to competition, the rules that we play etc.

Understanding these are likely to change and what you need to do to prepare correctly can change how you planned for the previous season.

Equally, how have other things moved on, like technology? Can you work with your players in a different way by taking an iPad to training, loading up some clips from You Tube of Messi or Ronaldo in action and showing these as a means of demonstration when you are talking about improving their dribbling?

Better still, can you set them the task of finding out these skills and bringing along to coaching or match day to help improvement?

Every year things change – new software, new politics, new rules. Stay ahead of the game and adapt your planning and delivery accordingly.

8.   What’s my focus?

Without doubt, your focus should be on helping your children. But what does that mean to you? And in pursuit of that, there are loads of other smaller goals along the way – to give game-based learning a chance, to improve the quality of questions the learners receive, to focus more on player-centred outcomes.

Plus you probably want to develop a better relationship with your players, get better at coaching and enjoy the experience more than the previous season.

Having a focus doesn’t mean you don’t make these sort of commitments to yourself, that’s also really important. So pick a topic, try and learn more about it and have a go – Google it, skim Twitter, ask colleagues, read books.

It’s crucial that you then reflect and think back and be honest with yourself about how it all turns out. Above all, enjoy getting better too!

It's more than balls, bibs and cones, it's about people.

It’s just about ‘people’…

The more I think about things now, the more I’m coming to the conclusion that the development of young people in sport comes down to one key thing; relationships between people. The content of the technical components, the actual information you provide to help a learner improve, qualifications, the size of the pitch and all those other bits are often secondary. And I think this extends beyond sport into everyday life and business too.

I turned on the TV earlier this week and stumbled across ‘The Undercover Boss’, a programme where the Chief Executive of a large company goes incognito and down to the floor level of the organisation to find out what really goes on, the thoughts and feelings of the people that work for them. This episode happened to be about Biffa, the national refuse collection company. As ‘Mark’ donned his stubble and glasses he learnt a very clear lesson, demonstrated in the Boardroom – ‘this company is built on the foundations of good people’ and if you treat the people well, guess what, productivity increases, staff retention increases and costs are lowered. And for CEO’s, often that means profitability goes up too.  This finding has been replicated across all the episodes I’ve seen.

Think about the people in your life that make a difference, what are they like? How do they make a difference? What do they do differently? What can you remember about your teachers from school? I’m guessing the memories will either be very positive or very negative and often based around how they made you feel as a person?

I’ve interviewed A’ Licence and Pro Licence coaches for jobs they have applied for to work in primary schools and not actually appointed many of them, despite being way more qualified than the ones we have selected. Why - because it’s much more than the piece of paper. Does that coach have the ability to enthuse, inspire and captivate the imagination of young people? Do they actually like working with children? That’s ultimately what we are looking for in a coach. Would that coach be appropriate in a different setting, possibly yes, but we are at a crucial time now in the development of sport where we need the right coach with the right age group.

The person delivering the coaching, their make up and them as a person can essentially make or break everything. If they have the right traits, their character can ignite and accelerate a young person’s curiosity, learning and love for the game. If young people acquire these facets they will source the technical components themselves or ask questions of other people to find them out.

If they aren’t the right character as a person, they can do severe damage long-term to that child and put them off playing sport for life. The knock-one effect can then carry to their children, due to the impact of socialisation.

Who the ‘right person’ is becomes a debate but I feel you can drill it all the way down to being a good human being. Putting the interests of others before your own, helping out young people on their voyage towards self-discovery and just being nice to children goes a long way. We learn in the modern world through collaboration, interacting with other people, so the coach that can facilitate this beyond just being ‘the font of all knowledge’ him or herself is on to a winner.

Within grassroots football, we are developing more than footballers; it is about developing better people. All the dynamics that being involved in a team sport can bring you - understanding people from different communities, working in small teams, developing tactical and strategic thinking, allowing creativity to flourish, recognising that different people have different skill sets that make a team function and become high performing. These are all skills now valued by the modern day businesses.

It is often helpful to understand yourself before you can start to help others. How has your journey impacted on your own life? What has been the speed bumps along the way that has shaped you as a person and your character? If you can start to understand these you can then start to understand helping others. Emotional intelligence it might be known as, and if you like reading, try Daniel Goleman’s work as a starter for ten.

Coaching by its nature involves the interaction between people and the coach needs to allow the recipient to become part of the process; ultimately, we want to develop an independent thinking learner that can take responsibility for their own learning (when they are ready). 

We can then go a long way to developing a generation of young people that can flourish in the future, whatever sport, work or life throws at them. 

Coaching the modern day beast...

Coaching is an interesting art, definitely an art, and perhaps a science also. It challenges adults to think about someone else and delve into the mindset of another individual. In many of the cases of the people I come across and talk about coaching with, the people they are trying to get inside the heads of is someone infinitely different to themselves; a child. 

This is where for me coaching is difficult. For starters, many of our preconceived ideas about coaching, the ones we have in the depths of our episodic memory, evolve from how we were coached. And herein lies the first challenge - kids today are different. 

Back in the day, when there was one black and white TV channel, one opportunity to watch football and no Playstation's, children used to learn very differently. Some children would need a coach to learn things from, to gain new ideas and our perception of learning was very different - "I am the coach and I will get what is in my head, into your head". 

However, think of the modern day child you are coaching; 900 TV channels (mostly showing Friends or back episodes of Come Dine With Me), dedicated sport channels and football virtually available, from all over the globe 24/7. Kids today know more about European football and players from having played FIFA and watched the Champions League than our experiences. Furthermore, add in the wonders of You Tube - kids can now go on there, at any stage, and see a skills compilation from Messi and Ronaldo and guess what, they go and practice that!

You could argue now, with the availability of learning material on offer to the modern young person, their need for a specific 'coach' in the previous descriptive term of their role is possibly shifting. 

This is where for me another challenge exists; how does the coach who's preconceptions of their role go back 15-20 years adjust to the needs of the modern day young person? I think we can talk about coaching practices, the X's and O's, as much as we like, but the foundation of everything has to come from understanding the young person in front of you. 

How can you harness the modern day learning ability of young people for their benefit within your coaching? How do you need to evolve and change?

Two quotes to leave you with...

'Do not confine your children to your own learning, for they were born in another time' (Chinese Proverb)

'If we teach today as we taught yesterday, we rob our children of tomorrow' (John Dewey)

Preseason is fast approaching...

It's the time of the season that adults typically fear; the endless laps, the 'bleep test', the military-style circuit training with one-minute planks and a 12 minute run. The thoughts of not seeing a ball for six weeks and having to take your 'runners' every week as doing those miles in your Copa's on rock hard ground wasn't fun for your feet. And why? Because someone can recall, back in their youth (circa 1960's), that this was the way to get people fit and ready for the test of a gruelling 8-month long slog of a season through the hardened English winters. 


So, it makes sense knowing what we do about physical development principles now to question some of these approaches to training. For example, doing a 12 minute run makes you a good 12 minute runner, it doesn't make you a good footballer. Nor fit for the game because the game actually bears no resemblance to a constant 12 minute run. Therefore, why do you do it?


It makes even more sense to question why we see this with children! I kid you not, 9-year olds doing the 'plank' have been witnessed on playing fields of the south east of England this very preseason! This post is not going to give you the answers about what to do or how to plan for a whole preseason but more to ask you to think about this question - Why are you doing what you are doing? What is the benefit? Is it appropriate?


Considerations
This time of the year is important and it could be for a number of factors. You might have new children that have joined the team and you need to integrate them with existing members. You might have new parents that then come with expectations of their perception of what a 'coach' is and what 'preseason looks like' so these need managing too. You might need to get the kids running about and into some kind of physical shape if they have not done much exercise throughout the summer. You might be going to a different format of the game and you need to introduce the young players to an alternative formation. There could be all sorts of different elements to consider and these need careful pontification.


Therefore, rather than do what you did as a youngster yourself, or regurgitate those adult-centric drills that we think worked for us, or repeat what you did last season and the three before that, take a good look at the process for the next few weeks ahead.


What does age-appropriate training look like?
Young children don't have the same bodies as adults; they don't regulate temperature and deal with hot and cold in the same way ours do, they don't deal with high intensity bouts of exercise as their anaerobic systems aren't fully developed yet...so park those shuttles and find a different way to help them. 


The challenge is to decide what is appropriate for the age of the young people you are working with. This could vary from no fitness related sessions at all and a focus still on developing fundamental movement skills and functional movement skills with little ones to doing some elements of capacity building, game speed and game strength with U18 players. 


How can you make the experience one that doesn't scare players for life?
We all have our own reservations about preseason training and you can sense my feelings on what I have endured in the past by the tone of this blog! So as a coach, how can you make this fun and enjoyable for the young players? These sessions have to be fun and where possible involve a ball too. Just because there is a ball doesn't mean the players aren't working.


For example, playing four games of 4v4 for 4 minutes (on a small pitch and small goals) with the simple conditions of a) the coach having lots of balls ready to use, b) the ball has to come back into play within 4 seconds and c) the player in possession has to be closed down within 4 seconds, can be an incredibly tough and high tempo workout. And this closely replicates the game they are getting fit for. 


Whatever your aims and outcomes are for the preseason period, please give them some thought. Plan appropriately for the group of modern day learners you have in front of you, use modern day coaching methods and make this an enjoyable start to the season. Now, wouldn't that be a modern approach for this time of year?! 

Tournament time is fast approaching for the kids...

It's Tournament Time!
Now the season has finished, all presentation evenings are coming to a close and rounding off everyone's achievements with a well-earned thank you, the next football door opens - it's that of the "7-a-side tournament" or whatever derivation you might find your team attending. 


This is a strange time for young players. It creates an environment that heaps a huge amount of pressure and stress yet fun and enjoyment in one day. It sees children and young people experience a whole season's worth of football crammed into one day and personally, I love them! These can be fantastic learning opportunities for coaches and players of all ages. So, here are a few things to think about on how to get the best of the day. 


What is 'Success'?
Before the day starts it's important to define what success looks like for the young players. Is it winning the tournament? Is it putting into practice all the things you've been doing in training? Is it the social side of a day for the families to come together in the sun (hopefully) and enjoy themselves? 


Whatever "success" looks like, it really helps if you can define this or, more importantly, ask the players to define what this means to them. We did this with our group of U10 boys on a recent tour to Germany, playing against 40 professional teams from the host country to far-ranging teams from Russia, Czech Republic, Italy and Brazil. The feedback from the boys before we went - "to have fun", "to get on well with team mates and not fall out" and "to get better". One player of the 11 that we took said "to win the tournament". We shaped all the discussions into three key objectives for us on the trip: 


1. To try and win the tournament - that's why we entered and it is a game after all!
2. To learn some new things - whether about how to travel well, words in another language, but importantly, things both on and off the pitch. 
3. To have fun - vital and incorporated the aspects of team bonding and enjoyment too.


The important part was the boys had a voice as part of the discussions into what they wanted to achieve, not just us as the coaches. Try and find some ways to let them decide what they want from it too. 


Now, depending on how brave you are feeling depends on how far you want to go. If the focus is on enjoyment and having a great day with all the families and other kids around, you can almost experiment more.


Why not try:
1. Let the kids decide who plays what game and when.
Can you challenge their leadership skills to decide this? Can you ask them to think about different reasons as to why certain players would play at certain times? Can you ask them then to think about who plays and why?


For example, if you know some of the teams you are playing against, the children might decide that the best player has to play against the best opposition but could be rested against a lesser team. There is every chance they will come to the same conclusion you would have done - but think about the added value of learning they get from making this decision themselves. This helps support empowering young people - vital. 


2. Let the players decide what positions they play.
Can you be bold and ask their input into this? That player that you have pigeon holed all season "because he kicks it a long way therefore must play in defence" might want to try playing somewhere else. Your goalkeeper might want to have a try playing out on pitch. In my experiences, I have one or two outfield players in my team that think they are a goalkeeper and love messing about with the gloves on, so let them play a game there maybe!


3. Let the learners decide on the formation and strategy to play.  
Have the discussion with the players - what is best to play and why? If we play a 2-3-1 and they play a 3-1-2 where does this mean we have advantages? Where does this mean they might have advantages? Rather than you decide every game what and how it shall all be done, relax and listen to the views of the children. They might have some really good ideas!


4. Manage the parents expectations.
If you have the kids taking ownership of the day on some of the matters above, share this with the parents. Explain that the kids have decided on certain aspects and they should be commended for having a go at trying something new. Share the definition of success for the day. 


One of the best pieces of advice is to ask your parents to bring a chair so they can sit down, relax, and enjoy watching their kids have a good time playing football. The ones you can get at a motorway service station, 2 for £12 that fold up and have a drinks holder in the armrest, brilliant, get yourself some of them!


It's amazing how chilled parents become if they are sitting down watching a game rather than standing up, edging along the touchline desperate to shout what they think is advice to their son or daughter!


5. Understand the day from their perspective. 
Tournaments and festivals are often long days, sometimes with long breaks between games and lots of boredom. However, it is a real necessity that you manage the health and energy levels of the children appropriately. Make sure they drink enough and have sun cream on, especially in hot weather. Make sure they eat enough, sensible reasonably healthy food too. The last thing you want is the players filling themselves with sweets throughout the day, massively high blood sugar levels (and managing them!) and then when they crash down, having to pick them up to play in a game. 


They will be very excitable at the start, probably expend more energy when they aren't playing doing other things (still playing, chasing each other, messing about) and then wonder why they have nothing left in the tank when it comes to game time. Try and ensure the players get rest between matches too and by engaging them in the tasks 1-3 above, this keeps them focused on football without racing about or throwing water over each other!


It can also be a time that pressure builds, depending on how far they might get in the competition. Manage this, make sure they don't feel under pressure to "have to win" but to constantly "try their best". That's all you can ask of them. 


And if they lose on penalties in the semi-final, expect them to be upset, expect a few tears. What is important is the learning and lessons that come from times like this, so focus on these factors rather than your own disappointment. This needs to be hidden away from their view - no flailing arms, moaning at the referee or shouting at anyone - be a good role model to the children, that's what they want from you. 


Children just want to know everything will be ok, you still love them regardless of whether they won or lost and that tomorrow is another day. 


Enjoy!