A few years ago, when my son was 6, I quizzed him on some math problems I assumed he wouldn't be able to answer. "What's 8 x 4, Nicky?", I asked. He looked in the sky, and for 20-30 seconds mumbled what sounded like gibberish to me. Finally, he asked, "Is it 32?"
Okay, lucky guess I'm thinking, so I asked a few more. Each time he repeated his procedure - he looked in the air and mumbled to himself. Sometimes he got the correct answer; on the times he didn't, he was able to rethink the problem and eventually come up with the correct response.
When I asked how he did it, and what was he mumbling, I didn't understand his reasoning. Somehow it must have made sense mathematically, but I certainly wasn't able to follow it. To him, though, his reasoning was crystal clear.
Fast forward 2 years. He brings home multiplication homework now, but he doesn't use that cool problem solving process he invented for himself a couple of years ago. His teacher wants him to do it her way; I'm not sure Nicky could even remember his old "trick" anymore. That saddens me because I feel like a gift has been taken from him: his ability to invent a way to solve a problem.
What's that got to do with youth soccer? Everything. Watch as an outsider and see as parents and coaches, all well-meaning, are yelling instructions at their players as the game is in progress. Just as the creativity in my son's problem solving for math was stifled by a well-meaning teacher, I think we as coaches are doing the same to our young players by not giving kids the opportunity to figure the game out on their own.
Yelling instructions makes sense to me. As an adult I believe we feel obligated to help our kids along. We don't want them to fail, so we help by telling them what they should do - sometimes incessantly.
But as a youth soccer coach I know this is the wrong approach, for two reasons. First because calling out to a youth soccer player takes his focus off the game, where it should be, and second, because even if the youth soccer coach's instructions are heard and effective (which I believe is very doubtful), he is in effect telling his youth soccer players that he does not trust their ability to play the game or to make the decisions necessary to play the game. Each directive a coach yells out makes the youth soccer players more dependent on him, and chips off another slice of what's left of the players' creativity and problem solving abilities, perhaps two of the most important qualities needed to play soccer well.
I am coaching director for a youth soccer League with over 300 youth coaches. My biggest failure is that as hard as I've tried I have not been able to get this message across. Some get it - mostly the Mom coaches. But every Saturday when I go out to the fields, I hear it. I know these are great parents with the best intentions, but I wish they could understand that a cheer, some encouragement, or even better a little quiet would better serve their sons and daughters than the advice they choose to scream out. I need them to know what a very wise coach once told me: 'the problems on the field belong to the players, so the responsibility to solve those problems belongs to them as well'.
The funny part of this comes when you speak with the youth soccer players. I have asked youth soccer players the question "what are you thinking when your coach is yelling at you?'" and the responses are generally
- "It makes me mad"
- "I stop listening to what he says"
- "I can't concentrate"
- "It makes the game not as much fun", and my favorite
- "I pretend like I heard him and just play the way I was"
And we think we're helping by yelling out?
I'm happy to say I conquered this yelling thing a few years ago. At my team's games I have mastered the art of picking out a soft piece of grass, filling my backpack with Pepsis and pretzels, and watching them quietly with an assistant on the sidelines. I can't think of another way to watch a youth soccer game - I get to enjoy a soccer game, observe what I have helped create (my teams' play) and have a snack. Oh, and the refs love me.
