If you're like most youth sports parents right now, you're probably spending a lot more time with your children than you were expecting. You're taking on the role of stay-at-home mom or dad, teacher, and coach. That's a lot to handle!
As a youth sports coach, I've seen a lot of kids come through my program over the years. If there's one piece of advice I could give to parents, it's to let your kids be kids and let them develop a love and passion for the sport of their choice organically. Certainly some prodding, encouragement, and pointing in the right direction can be of great help from parents, but that's about where the line needs to be. Anything greater and you will likely turn them away from the sport, even if initially they seem to be interested and invested in your work with them.
Having said that, we are experiencing unprecedented times. While we normally ask our parents to let the coaches coach and the parents parent, we're in a bit of a gray area today. You might need to do a bit more work "coaching" your kids than either you or your child would like.
The purpose of this article is to offer a few pointers and guidelines on how to work with kids who are 10 & under, particularly pre-pubescent athletes.
The most important thing to remember about children is that they need to play and explore. It’s better for them to do unstructured or organized games than to run through a strict dry-land regime. What’s important is that they remain active and are engaging their creativity – that’s how they learn best.
Please keep the following guidelines in mind when working with your 10 & under child. These are important principles that all coaches and parent coaches should follow when coaching young kids. They are taken from the book "Conditioning Young Athletes" by Tudor Bompa and Michael Carrera. Bompa is a leading sports scientist and is most well known for his work on periodization, as well as his work on long-term athletic development. He has trained multiple World and Olympic athlete medal winners, and has received multiple Life-Long achievement awards.
Multi-lateral development requires children to perform movements at varying levels of intensity and at different angles and to utilize all muscle groups in the activity. It should be the major scope of focus for any strength program for prepubescent athletes. By playing sports and varying their exercises, children develop basic strength, general endurance, short-distance speed, and good coordination.
Children who are ten years old or younger will make greater gains in coordination if they participate in a variety of activities as opposed to doing sport-specific training. Multi-lateral training at a young age is best because it exposes children to numerous skills, drills, games, and other exercises that enrich their skill experience and improve their coordination dramatically.
Children can begin to strength train as early 7 or 8 years of age. The intensity of the training sessions should be very minimal. Body weight exercises should be the foundational exercises used in training. Proper supervision is required to ensure adequate instruction and proper technique.
Gains in pre-pubescent children are NOT the result of muscle enlargement, but rather the ability of the central nervous system to activate or stimulate the muscles. We see this in the improved ability of children to perform a skill efficiently and with force and power. Consequently, most muscles learn to cooperate, synchronizing their actions and contracting the chain of muscles involved in strength training. The result is increased force in the intended direction of movement.
Regimented, stressful strength training not only puts prepubescent athletes at serious risk for injury but also leads to burnout and hurts the careers of potential high performers. Strength training should be done as an addition to technical work and general skill development and be limited to body-weight or medicine ball exercises.
Endurance for prepubescence doesn’t have to be developed in a regimented fashion, such as running laps for a given distance or speed. This would be a gross disservice to children, who have limited attention spans and should not be considered young adults. If it is not fun, they are more likely to want to stop the exercise or to associate the exercise with fatigue. The earlier children feel pain, the faster they will be hurt, burned out, and even willing to quit the sport. Playing fun games and activities and promoting friendly competition makes kids willing to run faster, jump higher, and have a great time pushing their potential.
Most young children are not capable of coping with the physical and psychological demands of high-intensity training or organized competitions. Training programs for these young athletes must focus on overall athletic development and not sport-specific performance.
Anaerobic capacities are limited as children have low tolerance for lactic acid accumulation.
OK, with that precursor, let's dive into some activities we can do with our kids at home!
One-on-one football with an all-time QB
One-on-one basketball, dribbling or shooting games, “21”
“Tennis baseball” with a tennis ball and wiffle ball or baseball bat - space permitting!
2-on-2 ultimate frisbee
One-on-one soccer with an all-time goalie
Play catch, throw a frisbee around, kick a soccer ball - "lead your child" so they have to run to retrieve the throw, toss, or kick.
Lawn games such as horseshoes, croquet, cornhole, bocce, can jam, etc.
Table tennis!
Have them ride their bikes around the neighborhood. OR, go for a walk and/or a bike ride together.
Fly a kite and run with the wind!
Help plant a garden. Help with dirt removal, digging, planting, watering, etc.
Hula Hoop
Jump Rope
Scooters
Organize races between siblings. Include wheelbarrow, crab, and bear walks. Handicap and offer prizes as necessary.
Create an obstacle course – can be done inside if you’re brave enough!
Organize a “hunt” either inside or outside, similar to an Easter egg hunt or scavenger hunt.
Have a dance party!
Play follow the leader – as the parent, you’re leading – incorporate exercises such as push-ups, jumping jacks, skipping, running, etc.
Play tag or hide-and-seek!
Play catch
Gymnastics exercises such as somersault (forward or backward), cartwheel, handstand (with spotter as needed), roll with turns
Wrestling – only for the brave at heart!
Push-ups, sit-ups, jumping jacks, squats, calf-raises, athletic jumps. Find a way to make a game out of it. Use different types of reward systems for challenging sets or exercises.
And lastly, here is a table from Bompa and Carrera's "Conditioning Young Athlete's", that shows what kind of skills our young athletes should be developing and what type of exercises can be done to help develop these skills. Remember it's best to vary the exercises and try to make a game out of whatever you're doing!
Thanks for taking the time to read - have fun with your little ones and enjoy your time with them - eventually, it will be back to reality for all of us and we may never get another chance like this!