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Football is the world’s number one sport in both participation (people playing it) and people watching it. It’s no wonder that most children will want to play football or most parents will want their child to at least give it a try because there is so much focus on the sport in schools and beyond and being part of the game brings so many benefits.
All of this also brings a dark side to the beautiful game. Pressure, frustration, agony, keeping up with the Jones’, to name a few. I see a lot of otherwise really nice people suddenly turn into monsters when they come to football training.
It’s not nice for the parent because they’re getting angry in public and it’s really hard on the child because he/she thought he/she was going to have some fun and not get shouted at by angry mum/dad!
But this dark side can easily be avoided by following these 3 simple recommendations that are guaranteed to help your child excel and become better at football.
1. When attending your child’s football training be patient. Don’t expect instant results and don’t compare your child to other children in the training session.
It’s really easy to look at another child and start comparing your child but you just don’t know how long that child has trained for, how much practice he/she puts in at home and what other training they do.
So avoid comparing your child to others. It will save you a lot of frustration. Patience really is the key to helping your child go a long way and who knows, may be all the way, in football. So it’s well worth it.
2. Encourage your child. I see many parents scold and tell off their children when they can’t perform a skill or are struggling to keep up pace but this is the worst thing you can do.
Every parent wants their child to do well at football. You want them to try their best, you want them to become more confident and you want them to be the best they can be and so you should.
The easiest way you can help your child develop all of these wonderful skills is to encourage them as much as possible.
Give them praise for trying, help them when they’re struggling and never scold them if they fail because failure is a huge part of the learning process and if you scold your child for failing they’ll eventually give up trying.
If they give up trying, they’ll give up football and not want to play it at all. And that’s not a place we want them to end up in.
Who cares if they can’t perform a skill now? With your encouragement and support your child will develop a special confidence that will help them to try and try again until they can eventually perform the skill and many other skills too.
Just like when your child was learning to stand up and walk. Did you ever scold them when they fell down? Of course you didn’t! You encouraged them and after about the 1000th time they succeeded. Remember that moment? A joyous moment and one to be cherished.
Imagine if you had that attitude to your child’s football? Imagine how confident your child will feel knowing he has the ultimate backing – the support of mum and dad.
Plus you’ll develop a special resilience in your child where they’ll understand that practice makes them better and making mistakes along the way is part of the process to becoming the best.
If you help your child develop this kind of attitude towards football then they will want to learn and practice more – and once you have that in your child then you have something very special.
Encouragement is key, so use it to help your child progress and develop.
3. Help them at home. In our world of ‘instant everything’ we do expect a lot from our children. Unfortunately some parents have the attitude that if the child is not at Ronaldo standards in the first few months then they’ve failed.
But what they fail to realise is that a player of world class quality like Ronaldo trained for at least 5 hours every day from the age of 6 onwards.
So if you’re expecting your child to be world class and he/she only trains one hour a week then you need to look further into how world class players actually live and train.
You can help your child by practising the skills and techniques they learn at training and do them at home. It doesn’t have to be 5 hours a day.
Even 10 minutes of ball mastery a day will hugely improve your child’s skill level and confidence plus it gives you a chance to spend some quality time with your child in an enjoyable, distraction-free setting.
Just like you help your child with their reading and writing, help them with their football training. It will pay dividends further down the line when they’re really popular in school because they’re good at football.
I hope you’re now thinking that helping your child become good at football is a lot easier than you may have originally thought.
With patience, understanding, encouragement and help, your child will at the very least become the best they can be. And that, my dear friend is a great place for you and your child to be.
This article was written by Striker Academy’s Head Coach, Imtiaz Jamil. Imtiaz specialises in children’s football psychology, 1-2-1 training and helping children play football to their best.
