The frustrations of U6 soccer!

With coaching the U6 teams this year the coaches are refereeing the games, so any pictures I get I will post. Hopefully some great parent with take some pictures and send them to me. Things are going okay. Have you ever heard a child say, I don't need to come to practice, I'm already a good player? These kids don't realize that they gain so much more than just learning the game, like learning to play together as a team. I have so many frustrations with this age group. They play in a ball, which is driving me crazy and even when you tell them to spread out and get them to spread out, they end up back together in a ball. Oh ya, they fight their own teammates for the ball. Help! I've forgotten how to reach 5 and 6 year old kids in soccer.

Not to mention if they don't want to do something they lay down in the middle of the field. What's up with that. Yikes! Patience is a virtue right. I've just got to be patient. How much do they really learn their first year and remember? Should I worry that I'm not getting through to them? I'm working with them on gaining control of the ball. I found a new drill called keep away and the kids are teamed up and try to pass the ball to one another to keep it away from the other team. I didn't have a good turn out to practice tonight, but I plan on doing it again.

One of the dad's gave me a good idea to keep them apart, to tie a rope between the kids and there can't be any slack in the rope it has to be tight. I didn't get to try this today but will on Monday for practice. I'm hopeful that this will help them learn to leave space between each other. I don't remember having this big of a problem with the first team of U6 kids I taught. I do remember them doing cartwheels during the game and running after butterflies and watching airplanes flying over. I guess it's normal but frustrating.

One other thing at our game we even had kids talking smack to each other. We had a nice talk about sportsmanship. I was totally blown way that they would do that at this age. We have a game on Saturday hopefully things will be better.