Just curious as I know there are several coaches on here. My kids (1st grade boy/2nd grade girl) are starting their youth sports this year. I am helping with the youth basketball and let me tell you, this is a whole different animal than coaching high school boys I am used to. Anybody have any good advice to pass along. I am enjoying doing it. I know I am going to struggle with expecting more and being harder on my own kids. I also realize I need to dial it back a little on them at this age so they still have a lot of fun and want to continue to get better. Right now my son is eating it up and my daughter enjoys it but is probably there more to see here friends. Anyway, just wondering if anybody had any advice for coaching kids at such a young age.
Coaching your own kids
- Thread starter Power_I_82
- Start date
Be patient, stress fundamentals. When the game is over it is over, don't talk about it all the way home, I made that mistake. You have to have a line between being dad and being the coach. I coached the same bunch including my son from T ball clear up thru junior high baseball and I grew a lot with them. I now coach them in football, and I'm sure they would agree I've mellowed a lot thru the years. Sometimes I would watch game film and start busting his *** a little until one day he asked if we could not talk football all the time.....I took the hint. But has been so rewarding to see the way theses boys have grown as athletes and people.
1- keep it fun
2- keep drills short
3- work on fundamentals (using games in practice)
4- learn what kids you can push & what kids need a little more encouragement
5- KEEP AS MANY KIDS INVOLVED AS YOU CAN! Nothing worse than chasing a kid off at 4th grade cause they're not good, then they end up being someone that may have benefited the HS team 6-7 years down the road. Kids develop at different times.
6- winning is fun, absolutely. But developing kids is way more important in youth.
7- never play zone. Teach them man D.
8- don't pigeon hole a kid into being a post/guard. Teach them all skills. Never know how big or small they'll be in HS
Just my opinion...
Wish I knew a few of these when my kids were younger.
Agree. At this age.........play EVERYONE. Teach fundamentals and try to keep it fun.
Fundamentals and fun big time over winning with the youth. I have seen many kids teams that were "successful" mainly because they only played the studs at the time, played zone, and parents coached them like a high school team. When they did get to HS things caught up. Other teams developed, increased practice intensity, slower developers came along. Then the formerly "successful" teams became quite average, and the parents blame the HS coaches.
Excellent advice here. A couple additions:
Have players play all positions. Or run some sort of 5- out offense. We put my daughter (biggest girl on team) on the block and the other dad/ coach made his daughter (littlest girl) the point guard. They were ok in those roles but never developed into complete players. Should have made my daughter bring the ball up the floor a few times a game.
Also, before you say anything on the way home, always say, “I LOVE watching you play!”
Have players play all positions. Or run some sort of 5- out offense. We put my daughter (biggest girl on team) on the block and the other dad/ coach made his daughter (littlest girl) the point guard. They were ok in those roles but never developed into complete players. Should have made my daughter bring the ball up the floor a few times a game.
Also, before you say anything on the way home, always say, “I LOVE watching you play!”
Big fan of everyone playing every spot on the floor in youth basketball. And also big proponent of no zone defense in youth basketball.
