When I signed our girl up for soccer there was probably still snow on the ground, it was definitely not warm out.
I said “hey you are going to play soccer this spring, it’s going to be so much fun.”
She said “but mom I don’t have an outfit for that…”
No worries I thought, we’ll pick up some shin guards and a new ball. She already has sneakers and athletic shorts. It’s going to be perfect.
I envisioned myself sitting on the sidelines laughing as she ran around participating with a coach who knew EXACTLY what they were doing and had be doing it for 20 years… Basically I envisioned the coaches of my youth soccer days coaching her while I sat on the sidelines socializing with other parents.
About two weeks before the start of the spring season I got the dreaded and apparently very common email “we have no one to coach your kid’s team, if no one volunteers we will cancel…”
I thought to myself “how hard can it be?” and “I have 15 years experience working in Division 1 college athletics,” and “I played soccer all of my childhood and through high school, I can do this…”
Guys the very first practice I tried to explain a fun game, I said “ok go” and half of the kids took off running for the playground three fields away. All the parents were laughing as a few of them ran off to retrieve the kids. I hadn’t even noticed, I was busy trying to play the game with the kids that had stayed behind.
To be honest coaching her little team has been fun, and I’ve had to laugh at myself a lot.
I’ve gotten pointers from my almost 4 year old. Two weeks before the end of the spring season she said we weren’t cheering enough and we needed to put our hands in and do a cheer. I honestly have no idea where she came up with that. We had never done it at practice. Apparently she was correct because all her fellow 3-5 year old friends liked the idea also.
Now that I’ve completed my first experience coaching 3-5 year olds, here are my tips
- DO NOT go to YouTube and type in “soccer drills for 4 year olds.” Somewhere out there in the world there are 4 year olds that can do agility ladders, then there are the rest who definitely should not attempt agility ladders.
- water breaks are mostly for the coach to take deep breaths and figure out what to do next, it really is okay to give them every 2-3 minutes
- It’s much easier to take games and songs they already know and incorporate soccer into them. “We’re going on a bear hunt” worked super well to incorporate change of direction and hopping gross motor skills. Red light/ green light was also a success.
- If you are going to play a game with a boundary, walk the boundary with them before you start.
- It’s always good to have a “wacky outfit day”. We planned it for the last day and it was a TOTAL blast. One kid in a Batman outfit refused to answer to anything but Batman. Also my own daughter who had spent the previous 2 practices mostly taking extended water breaks and eating snacks was fully participational in her tutu.
- The size 3 ball is WAY TO HEAVY for them and it tires them out super fast, make sure to sprinkle non ball related games and activities throughout the practice.
- It’s best to just use name tags every week.
- It’s completely helpful to make the parents come out to do passing drills.
- If a drill or game is not working out how you envisioned it, it’s completely ok to ditch that plan before all the kids try it and move to something you know they can do. This isn’t high school or college soccer. Ahem, agility ladders.
10. If you are having fun the kids will too and at this age, that’s the most important thing.
We haven’t fully decided if we plan on continuing soccer in the future, but I learned a lot and my daughter definitely gained some athletic skills.
My mostly average life 