The coach plays a very important role in the beginning, when our children are still deciding which sport to choose and which sport they will enjoy. It is obvious that children have to try more sports to know what excites them more. The coach also has a lot of credit for that. Coach has to get their attention by some playful way, otherwise it will discourage them after the first or second training and they will not want to go back there. If you are considering which sport to put your child on, you need to find out in advance how, where and who trains those children. In case you don’t know anyone, you just need to try or you should first look at a trial training to see if your child would be interested in that.
When the child is older, parents tend to go to those trainings less often, so we encounter several situations where we have to listen to our children: “why don’t I play more” and “why other children are preferred more” and “the coach keeps shouting at me” and so on. If you care about your child and you support it and want it to continue doing the sport, then it is good to meet with the coach without your child and ask how he sees it, so that you can have a better perspective from the other side.
Of course, in different situations, each child will deal with the situation differently, some hide it in themselves that nothing is happening and deal with it themselves. On the contrary, others will struggle and the sport will stop being fun but all they would need, is to figure out what to do and solve it with a communication with the coach so that the both sides are satisfied.
A good coach must be able to evaluate the situation and be the support for the children. Be a psychologist, where he can put more pressure on one but take it slow on the other because it needs more time to adapt. Children have to go through everything to become strong personalities. If the child excels, it shouldn’t be pushed immediately into higher categories but to be put with the ones who are performing at the same level. The child needs to gradually build the position of a leader and it will build it in such a way that it will play among the peers. If he immediately moves to the older ones, he might not get to be the leader and his role is completely different. It often happens, that in clubs there are several categories and player commutes and gains experience in different categories. That’s when the player will grow.
The coach should:
-Work with athletes so that they determine some goals that he wants to achieve with them and where he wants to get them
-Communicate with parents so that they work together as one team
-Communicate with players and talk to them about how they feel
-Every week or two you have to go through with the players what you want to achieve with them and what you need to work on
-Be supportive for the players even in difficult situations so that they are not under very big pressure
-Support the players to rest enough and prepare for the next training
Every single detail is important for the players to progress and excel in sports, but the coach is a person with whom the athletes are in touch every day in training and the cooperation must work so that the athletes move forward.
