I am a relatively new soccer coach, I have been an assistant coach for my daughter's 7 & 8 year old team, and this year I am head coaching my son's 6 year old team.
When I coached the girls, there was generally a little silliness, but nothing too crazy. I always joked to parents,"There is a little known rule that during practice at least one girl must be performing a cartwheel at all times." I really enjoyed teaching them the game, and watching them get better over a couple of years was nice to see.
The boys are making me reassess whether or not I enjoy coaching. I swear that they are possessed by crazy monkey demons.
I spend close to 15 minutes out of our 1 hour practice just trying to get them to listen.
When I ask them to line up, they literally mill about in this blob that doesn't even come close to forming a line. I have to physically direct the boys to form a single file line. When I get to the 9th and 10th kid, kids 1-6 are now back to a chaos blob again.
There are always 2 kids pushing/shoving or doing the "test of strength" thing that WWF wrestlers used to do back in the 80's.
There are kids punting the ball directly into other groups of kids.
They constantly steal & kick each others soccer balls all over the field.
When we do get to running a drill, in which I specifically tell them to run around the outside of the practice area to get back into their line/blob, they run straight down the middle of the next 2 or 3 kids doing the drill. I have had at least 2 full-on collisions where I thought I would be calling an ambulance and then some parents about how their son was just concussed.
I have kids at games that don't want to come out when it's time to substitute and start crying on the field until their parents walk them off. They usually get over it, but the whole field has to wait until we complete the substitution process.
I have 2 space shots who will literally just wander aimlessly around anywhere at any time, usually pulling their arms inside their sleeves and staring at me with dead eyes as I tell them directly,"Hey, I need to to line up right here". I need to repeat this multiple times just to get them to stand in a single spot.
I have already e-mailed the parents asking them to talk to their kids about listening to their coaches at practice so I can spend less time redirecting and more time actually doing soccer related activities.
I played soccer from 6-14 years old. I know there was general goofing around and everything, but when my coach blew his whistle, we would get in line for the most part and start practicing. It seemed way less crazy than these guys are today. I feel like this goes way beyond normal 6 year old tomfoolery, and I am not sure if I am:
A) Old and out-of-touch with youth (I'm 44, not that old, despite the thread title).
B) Stuck with coaching the most chaotic band of children that the Midwest has ever seen (my kid included) and this is just a weird one-off situation I seemed inherit.
C) If this is happening to anyone else, and kids are just lunatics nowadays.
This was therapeutic for me to type, but is anyone else experiencing this? And, do you have any tips in general on how to, let me put this bluntly, get your kids toSETTLE THE FUCK DOWN SO I CAN TALK FOR 2 GODDAMN MINUTES ABOUT SOCCER!!!! just chill out in for a couple of minutes so I can teach you some soccer, young lads? I want to have fun with these guys, but I can't get there since they have exhausted my usual deep reservoir of patience.
When I coached the girls, there was generally a little silliness, but nothing too crazy. I always joked to parents,"There is a little known rule that during practice at least one girl must be performing a cartwheel at all times." I really enjoyed teaching them the game, and watching them get better over a couple of years was nice to see.
The boys are making me reassess whether or not I enjoy coaching. I swear that they are possessed by crazy monkey demons.
I spend close to 15 minutes out of our 1 hour practice just trying to get them to listen.
When I ask them to line up, they literally mill about in this blob that doesn't even come close to forming a line. I have to physically direct the boys to form a single file line. When I get to the 9th and 10th kid, kids 1-6 are now back to a chaos blob again.
There are always 2 kids pushing/shoving or doing the "test of strength" thing that WWF wrestlers used to do back in the 80's.
There are kids punting the ball directly into other groups of kids.
They constantly steal & kick each others soccer balls all over the field.
When we do get to running a drill, in which I specifically tell them to run around the outside of the practice area to get back into their line/blob, they run straight down the middle of the next 2 or 3 kids doing the drill. I have had at least 2 full-on collisions where I thought I would be calling an ambulance and then some parents about how their son was just concussed.
I have kids at games that don't want to come out when it's time to substitute and start crying on the field until their parents walk them off. They usually get over it, but the whole field has to wait until we complete the substitution process.
I have 2 space shots who will literally just wander aimlessly around anywhere at any time, usually pulling their arms inside their sleeves and staring at me with dead eyes as I tell them directly,"Hey, I need to to line up right here". I need to repeat this multiple times just to get them to stand in a single spot.
I have already e-mailed the parents asking them to talk to their kids about listening to their coaches at practice so I can spend less time redirecting and more time actually doing soccer related activities.
I played soccer from 6-14 years old. I know there was general goofing around and everything, but when my coach blew his whistle, we would get in line for the most part and start practicing. It seemed way less crazy than these guys are today. I feel like this goes way beyond normal 6 year old tomfoolery, and I am not sure if I am:
A) Old and out-of-touch with youth (I'm 44, not that old, despite the thread title).
B) Stuck with coaching the most chaotic band of children that the Midwest has ever seen (my kid included) and this is just a weird one-off situation I seemed inherit.
C) If this is happening to anyone else, and kids are just lunatics nowadays.
This was therapeutic for me to type, but is anyone else experiencing this? And, do you have any tips in general on how to, let me put this bluntly, get your kids to