7 Fundamentals
Encourage Mistakes
Making mistakes is an important part of learning for everyone, but especially for children. Children have spent
their entire lives learning from mistakes and that is not going to stop because they sign up for youth sports.
They are, however, going to be more sensitive to making them in front of all the other kids. Your job as a
coach is to lessen this sensitivity or risk inadvertently teaching your players not to take chances. Mistakes are
a wonderful learning tool and are just as important a part of mastering a skill as getting it right. Being able to
learn from the mistake, shake it off and try again will be a skill that will carry that child far in life. As
parent/coaches who are coaching children, teaching this skill may be the most important life lesson you teach.
Some of your players will have the confidence and self esteem to make a mistake and not take it personally.
They will keep at it until they get it right. Lucky them. Others, however, will go to any extreme to avoid touching
the ball in order to keep from making a mistake. To some coaches this might look like lack of hustle or
determination. When kids are afraid to fail, the pressure in sports can become overwhelming. The pressure
to perform without mistakes drives away many talented athletes from playing.
How do you teach kids the concept that mistakes are a learning tool? By the way you behave as you coach.
Do you inadvertently drop your head and kick the ground when a player strikes out? Or do you just move on to
the next batter and then find time to remind the player that being a hitter means striking out. It is important to
tell the kids on day one that you coach a team on which everyone takes chances and learns new skills, and
that you expect everyone to make mistakes if they plan on getting any better or learning anything at all. And
then you model that every minute of every practice, of every game.
Making mistakes is an important part of learning for everyone, but especially for children. Children have spent
their entire lives learning from mistakes and that is not going to stop because they sign up for youth sports.
They are, however, going to be more sensitive to making them in front of all the other kids. Your job as a
coach is to lessen this sensitivity or risk inadvertently teaching your players not to take chances. Mistakes are
a wonderful learning tool and are just as important a part of mastering a skill as getting it right. Being able to
learn from the mistake, shake it off and try again will be a skill that will carry that child far in life. As
parent/coaches who are coaching children, teaching this skill may be the most important life lesson you teach.
Some of your players will have the confidence and self esteem to make a mistake and not take it personally.
They will keep at it until they get it right. Lucky them. Others, however, will go to any extreme to avoid touching
the ball in order to keep from making a mistake. To some coaches this might look like lack of hustle or
determination. When kids are afraid to fail, the pressure in sports can become overwhelming. The pressure
to perform without mistakes drives away many talented athletes from playing.
How do you teach kids the concept that mistakes are a learning tool? By the way you behave as you coach.
Do you inadvertently drop your head and kick the ground when a player strikes out? Or do you just move on to
the next batter and then find time to remind the player that being a hitter means striking out. It is important to
tell the kids on day one that you coach a team on which everyone takes chances and learns new skills, and
that you expect everyone to make mistakes if they plan on getting any better or learning anything at all. And
then you model that every minute of every practice, of every game.
... let's not forget that.
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Key Fundamentals