Friends, it’s summer outside – a time when we spend a lot of time outside. At the cottage, in the countryside or just in the yard, try to use every minute – because the development of your child you can do yourself, turning it into a fun game.
A few coaching recommendations for home soccer practice:
Exercises should be interesting to the child. And even boring exercises can and should be varied a little. At younger ages (3-4 years) children think in images, so try to fantasize a little and talk while doing soccer tricks in the child’s language. Let the child circle the ball not around cones, but around bushes. He should not hit the goal, but shoot the cannon at the dragon’s castle….
Choose exercises for the first practice so that the child does most of the exercises well. Otherwise it may be difficult for him, and the child will lose interest in training. And this is the most important thing. Without interest alas you do not succeed.
Constantly praise your child and encourage him. Your child should understand that you approve of his actions and that he is doing everything right. Even if he does not quite succeed.
Thank your child at the end. This can be a tasty fruit, a small gift or, simply, a pleasant conversation. We highly discourage chips, candy and fast food. We highly recommend a weekend trip to the park for a carousel, a banana and a nice, delicious dinner from mom.
Exercise 1. Stopping the ball with your foot.
Part A) Everyone who is in the soccer section knows about the simple version of this exercise – we roll the ball to the child, he stops it with his foot. The child then has to pass it back to you. Try to work with your child on the accuracy of the pass he passes to you.
Part B) Make the exercise a little more difficult. Give a pass to your child that isn’t perfectly accurate-let him take a few steps before he stops the ball with his foot. This way he will develop his eye and learn to predict the position of the ball at different times depending on how fast it rolls. Similarly, ask your child to pass back to you after stopping
Part B) The hardest version of this exercise will require some skill from you as well. Pass to your child not on the bottom, but on the top. Make sure the ball is up when he receives it. Start with a simple throw to the child, then you can make it more difficult and pass so that the ball bounces on the lawn. This is a difficult exercise, so introduce it gradually to train your child.
Exercise 2: Practice Accuracy and Kick Strength
This is a very simple and very important exercise – we will train the accuracy of your little soccer player. Make a small goal and ask your child to hit the ball into it. Gradually increase the distance to the goal and decrease the goal. By increasing the distance to the goal, you will train your child’s kicking power.
When the child is experienced enough, it is possible to hit the ball not at the goal, but at a post or a stone – i.e. at a very small point.
Exercise 3. Working with a moving ball
- This exercise requires a child to hit a ball without stopping it. Combine different variations:Let the child catch up with the ball and kick it.
- You can pass it past him so he has to hit the ball tangentially
We recommend doing the exercises at a minimum speed of the ball. At the same time, do not rush to increase the speed. At high speed it is quite difficult to control the kick, especially for a child – he does not yet have a strong kick that can extinguish the speed of the ball and send it into the goal strongly and accurately.
Exercise 4: Catching up
Yes, we recommend this game as a soccer skill workout for kids three to four, five to seven years old. Let us tell you why it is so useful for a young soccer player:
- It’s fun and interesting for the child. Remember when we wrote that practice should be fun?
- Playing catch-up forces a child to make quick decisions and also to control his or her body quickly. This is a very important skill at an early age.
- While playing, the child very often changes the speed and direction of movement. This trains the leg, foot and ankle muscles – the most important muscles for a soccer player.
Exercise 5: Play soccer
As strange as it may sound, but talking to parents, we often hear that they want to train a child on their own at home, but they rarely play soccer with him. Play! Make a habit of it and get your child interested. Play 1 on 1. Play everywhere and all the time. Play with a ball, play with an empty can or a pebble in the park.
Have a great practice, friends!
