I feel his motivation and desire for this age is in overdrive. He wants to play everyday. He wants to play first thing in the morning, before eating anything. This morn we played to 20; he wanted to play to 30 but I cut him off b/c I had to make breakfast and do dishes. We play after school; we play in the evening. I'm the one who's burnt out on it. It's hurting my productivity. I wish he had a sibling to play with. I guess he needs to be more motivated to play by himself, like juggling or something. But he always wants to play 1v1.
Ok, just because it's fun to gamble, I'll take the bet I'm assuming you mean football as in gridiron not football as in soccer. Since here in CA soccer is a winter sport, he could play both football (fall) and soccer (winter) for HS.
I think we had our kids in various camps at that age. But it had nothing to do with worrying about if they'd "fall behind". They enjoyed playing. A camp was available that fit into our schedule, and we'd sign them up for it. NONE of our decisions for their soccer career (DS has been playing for 10-12 years and DD has been playing for about 8) were based on a concern of them falling behind. Can we afford it? Can we get them there? Do we think they'll enjoy it? Do they want to do it? If all the answers are "yes", we did it. If any answer is "no", we didn't. Worrying about "falling behind" is not a reason to do something IMO.
If he wants to play 1v1 with you every day you don’t have to have FOMO re: training. Plus you’re winning the Dad-Son quality time lottery.
How do you do that? I've been thinking about this quite a bit. I'm am basically in a phase of "sampling" coaching styles. First I coached myself (focus on dribble+shoot). Then my kid was on his friend's team with the friend's dad as coach (pass-heavy). He also took some soccer classes which were led by some very young people (maybe late teens to mid-20s; they were so-so). Next is playing under licensed coaches at Sac United; they did just have a free clinic and we went and it def felt "higher level"; we signed up for the Spring session. A big difference I noticed between the rec coaches and the club coaches (at Sac United) is that the club doesn't teach passing for the U-littles, rather they focus on individuals skills... while at rec league a lot of the coaches are wanting kids to pass often. I tend to agree with the Sac United approach. Focus on the individual, then work in the team stuff as they get older. For that reason if I sign my kid up for rec league in the fall I would probably want to coach so that I can control the teaching philosophy.
I will try to shift my approach from "not falling behind" to "what fits in our lives"... admittedly that is the more sensible and sustainable approach, and less stressful.
Doing 20 minutes of Renegade, BeastMode, Techne a night will be way better that 45 weeks a year of “competitive” soccer. Will get more touches in 20’ minutes than they probably do in a weeks worth of practices/games. Kids generally think it’s fun too. Cool moves are way more entertaining than building out of the back, passing, breaking down, blah, blah, blah.
What are these: Renegade, BeastMode, Techne? Sorry I am not familiar. Are these courses or moves or drills? thx
Sounds just about right for his age. Juggling and working on his skills by himself will probably come later if he's still passionate about the sport--IMHO it's very rare for a kid that age, even a very good player, to want to go outside and work on his/her skills solo. My son was all about playing 1v1, taking shots, & playing soccer tennis (often without a net in the street in front of our house) at that age, and even beyond. And if you're hoping to nurture that love, honestly--having him wanting to play MORE when you call it quits is probably the way to go. One thing you absolutely never want to do when they're kids--from ANY perspective--is make it a grind.
Ideally, the coaches would teach the entire game. The goal is keeping the ball and getting a shot when you have it - sometimes that is moving the ball with passing, sometime it is dribbling to draw defenders. Having the ball skils to beat/evade/shield is necessary, but not sufficient. Rec coaches probably aren't comfortable in teaching footskills - if a kid isn't intrinsically motivated, it's frustrating that they don't seem to progress just doing 15 minutes of ball skills every practice. So working on shape and passing can make it look more like "real soccer". Their kids should still be doing ball & wall work on their own to get good at passing but.... A lot of coaches tend to think if you have technically solid 12 year olds, you can then make them into tactically savvy 11v11 players - I'm not sold based on what I see when I watch what is considered high level US soccer. Techne is an app you can download that gives weekly challenges in skills and lets you track progress against other app users. You can also look for Yael Averbuch videos on youtube where she shows the same skills for free from before she launched the app if your son is motivated to work on his own. Beast mode is similar, they have free content on youtube if you are self motivated but they also have a program. Look for beast mode level 3 I think does a nice breakdown of showing moves in slo motion with a Mexican WNT player iirc.
My oldest kid had a coach at U-9ish who stressed foot skills above everything else. He would actually tally how many 'moves' each player would attempt during each game. There was no talk of score or league standings. It was all about developing skills and confidence under pressure. At that moment in time, I'll admit, I agreed with all the other parents stewing on the sideline, pissed that Suzy just attempted a pull back and lost the ball in the defensive 1/3 as opposed to just booting the ball up the sideline and out of danger. The team would regularly get creamed, but my kid didn't care, and her confidence on the ball grew more that year than any other. Parents ran the coach out of town, but in hindsight, he was probably one of the best club coaches my kid ever had. Once they get past U-little very few clubs stress developing technical skills, creativity, or risk taking. It really does have to be driven by the kid's own desire as CoachP says, and can be supported by apps, training on the side. Futsal is very useful too.
Here's another one I like from 2012, which was about when I also found the Averbuch and Beastmode level 1 and level 3 vids. Note this was Tobin back when the US strategy was run fast and get it above Abby's shoulders...I like this one because she points out you can do this anywhere. You don't even need cones, my kids used cans, shoes, books, lego towers...
I would think it would depend on the age. I think it is too soon to teach passing to 5 year olds as passing requires more advanced thought like getting open and understanding space and angles, communication, and actually be able to pass and receive the ball. I think a little passing is ok but it should be secondary at that age. They are naturally ball hogs anyways so let them indulge and leverage it into them learning rather than yelling at them to pass all the time, it confuses the littles. Let them organically make the decision but don't just yell "pass!", that doesn't teach them how to decide.
I like that, though I think the coach may have taken it a bit far. But I'd rather have a coach be extreme in focusing on foot skills vs on the other end of the spectrum (not caring about foot skills at all and focusing on say passing and fitness). I realized something last weekend, an epiphany of sorts, while playing adult pickup soccer. There are some guys with very good foot skills, but who are not in great shape. I am in better shape than them but I don't have the skills at their level (just wasn't exposed to that as a kid). But I have been practicing foot skills (as an adult). And it hit me that it seems much harder to learn those skills when old, and when you learn them young they stay with you. It's like the kid builds the muscle and the muscle memory stays as they grow into adulthood. So they could get out of shape and not play for a decade and then take back up the sport in their 30s or 40s and within a short time probably recall those skills and would have a much easier time doing foot skills in a natural way than someone older who's learning it for the first time. It's like learning a language; a kid learns it organically, and builds up the nuerons and muscles and whatnot and will retain that forever; it's harder to learn a language fluently as an adult.
Lots of truth in that (though I'm still ridiculously proud of that fact that, after hurting my right ankle pretty badly, I finally developed my left foot in my 40s so I could keep knocking a ball around with my son). The over-30ish indoor league I've played in off and on the past seven or eight years is littered with guys 45 and up with beer guts and braces on every joint in their bodies who stand at midfield and spray passes all over the field or camp out 10 yards in front of the net and drop balls in the corners of the goal. It's also full younger guys without many ball skills who do lots of running but don't have much idea of what to do with the ball, where and how to move when you don't have the ball, ...
re: how much soccer-- you definitely have to follow your kids lead and make the distinction between kicking around and something more organized. At the younger ages, I've known kids that wanted organized soccer at every opportunity and others that needed a break in the winter. One other thought-- you need to think about how much of your kid's wanting to play soccer with you at every chance is about the soccer VS. wanting to spend time with and thinking that soccer is a way to do that. With one of my kids, I focused too much on soccer and didn't realize for a long time that her desire to kick around was really more about wanting to be with me.
Sorry, was out of town for work so didn’t see this. They are all app/internet based technical skills programs. You can do a search on YouTube and get free videos for each. I think Renegade is probably the “best,” but my daughter likes Techne because it has a leaderboard that tracks their progress against other kids around the country world, a “streak” tracker for how many days you have trained in a row, specific challenges that give them prizes, and every X hours of training they send you a pair of socks (think like a martial arts belt). So I guess...in her opinion Techne is the best, and that’s what matters.