Imagine us as two friends sitting in a stadium watching a game between two youth teams with players aged 12 years old and below playing soccer.
Watching these children running with joy and showing off their skills and idiosyncrasies itself is a joy. It's all about creating an environment that will nurture the inborn passion of the child.
When a child is passionate about something, the issue of lack of concentration or boredom will never arise as they are enjoying every minute of it.
The moment boredom seeps in, they will stop learning and over time will drop out of that particular sport and lookout for something else that will give them fun and excitement.
A heart filled with joy allows the brain to learn but boredom makes the heart gloomy. A gloomy heart dulls the brain and causes youths to lose interest in learning anymore thus making them mediocre.
Yup, maybe that's what is happening today, where we see the attrition rate among youths dropping out of sports is getting higher and higher and the ones that are left behind in the elite program too can't be groomed to be among the best in the world.
From my observation and experience as a coach, the developmental stage is from the age of 0 to 16 years old, which is more learning-oriented, and from the age of 17 years old it is success-oriented in training and competition. (except for sports where agility and flexibility is the key for their success i.e gymnastic, swimming, etc; need to excel at an early age, below 17 years old)
There is a different process of learning between the development stage and adolescence.
At the development stage, the children must be exposed to an environment that is filled with fun and excitement(enabling a happy mind) with a development coach that understands children for the learning process to start.
For the adolescence level, however, it is the other way round where the adolescents must understand what the coach wants to achieve in training and competitions(success-oriented)
For children, seeing is learning and learning is seeing; they are always curious to learn new techniques, new ideas, and new strategies. A development coach must be innovative in fulfilling a child's curiosity.
Training in an environment where a child is always learning will sustain their passion for a particular sport, hence the brain too will develop.
A coach above all else is a teacher. I believe a coach's first responsibility is to coach the mind.
Every coach loves winning games, but a development coach must understand there's something that counts more than victory or defeat. You get to watch your players grow in their values, personality, in their educational development, and as human beings.
In the next part, I will cover the roles and responsibilities of parents, development coaches, and administrators in creating an environment that is conducive for a child's development growth i.e mind and body.
Thank You.
