The coaches who are charged with delivering the knowledge of this sport must first of all have unfettered knowledge of the sport – Volleyball in this case, and be assured of what progress he/she wants the athletes to achieve and how to go about it. Most importantly, the coaches should care the most about their trainees’ welfare during and after the game(s).
Here are some points for coaches to hold on to in order to help players learn to play the game of MiniVolleyball better:
- The coach owes every child the duty of understanding by attempting to talk to them, their families and friends where possible. This gives a context to what behavioural traits such children may exhibit and helps the coach to prepare to handle such children better.
Children have different personalities, even when they are from the same homes, therefore the mistake of generalization will greatly hurt any coach who attempts it. Each child should be treated specially, and observations, meetings, etc. should never be generalized.
- Theoretical knowledge of volleyball should be given to kids before they take to the courts to learn or play Mini Volleyball. Teaching them beforehand means that they are translating knowledge into action which is easier than trying to act and understand at the same time.
Making kids do both at once is detrimental because it represents flooding their young heads with information of different types at the same time. Doing so will easily make them lose interest in the sport and try to quit.
- In order to maintain the children’s interest in Mini Volleyball, the right conditions must be maintained at all times devoid of distractions and unnecessary pressure. Mental stress and pressure are detrimental to the development of children’s sporting skills and if they are allowed to foster, will negate all efforts being made.
Part of maintaining right conditions is ensuring that praise is used when players earn it. Withholding accolades is an emotional stressor and is bad for anyone – not just kids. When players do well, they should be praised and when they haven’t tried enough, should be encouraged to put in more effort.
It also includes working to ensure they have the right equipments like uniforms, balls and the likes without pushing too much of the cost onto them.
- To improve performance, players should have positions of responsibility within their teams. They also learn the importance of team building and team work in this process and become better individuals as a result.
When they know that their actions do not just bring consequences to themselves alone, players are more likely to behave better than normal, and will avoid repeating mistakes that have rubbed off wrong on their teammates in the past.
- Elements of several other sports should be infused into the training regime to engender flexibility, agility, strength and all round development. Inculcating such elements as these also keeps the children interested in what is being done especially since some of it will actually highlight their strengths at some point in time.
Running, gymnastics, jumping, and more can be added to the training activities and some training days can be dedicated exclusively to one or more of these activities to promote interest from players.
- Children should have sufficient warm up exercises and preparatory regimes before delving into the game. The importance of warm up is known to every coach, and it remains the same here – to prevent injuries. In the same spirit of preventing injuries, weight training is a no-no for children at this age since it actually increases their chances of suffering injuries or causes them outright. The key here is to remember that they are children. Therefore, warm up exercises that helps their body get ready for the exertion at hand and which prepares their minds too is very welcome. A good coach usually knows those activities which his/her players favour to wake them up for game time. Training sessions should be planned properly to go from easy to hard, light to heavy.
- In setting goals and targets, coaches should always remember to keep them realistic, specific and challenging as well as making sure goals are measurable. Good coaches earn their badges by their ability to strike this delicate balance for their players. Failure to challenge a child’s mind will se them lose interest super quick. Children at this age are most easily disinterested in activities they get involved in and the coach has a big role to play in keeping them interested. Setting unrealistic goals mired in vagueness is just unnecessarily pushing kids and making them find it hard to understand what they’re being imbued with. Children psychologists suggest that the best way to get to children is to keep things as simple as can be. Their young minds, as sharp as it is, cannot process such ambiguities.
- Whoever is saddled with a responsibility as huge as honing the skills of children whether in Mini Volleyball or any other discipline must understand that he/she will not just be a coach or mentor, but sometimes, a shoulder to cry on, a parental figure and much more. It also is interesting to note that such a person must know how to set aside personal feelings at times and concentrate on what is best for the team as a whole at all times.
The meaning of this is that coaches will have favourites, but should not let it reflect too often in their interaction with the members of the team. Such a situation will create a very unhealthy dynamic within the team and can be disastrous on results going forward.
- Individual players may need special training sessions to keep up with the rest of the team. Coaches should always be willing to give this extra show of care. By so doing, the coach is not only helping one of his/her player get better at the game, but they are also teaching a valuable lessons to the kid(s) involved as well as sowing a seed in them that they will gladly repay with the notch performances when the time comes.
Teaching Mini Volleyball is not a task for just any coach, but those who have proven themselves to be adept at working with children, or at least has the interest of kids at heart. This is so because this game has never been, and will never be about results, but is about growing something in the kids that they will never do away with.
Learning the game requires the patience to learn and the athleticism and focus to go with it. It also helps to have a support structure that believes in and supports the player sufficiently. From the coach, the parents, down to teachers and siblings, everyone has a role to play in the process of learning and perfecting the art of Mini Volleyball.