How To Think About The Introductory Sports Process for Young Children

Avoid Stop Gap Measures in Introductory Sports

Many of the troubles we, as adults, experience in the introductory sports process cause us to create stop gap measures or makeshift solutions that are only temporary substitutes for deeper issues.  Unfortunately, many of these improvised solutions are calls to disillusionment, and ultimately to disaster (i.e. our frustration, children's discouragement, or their resentment of sports).  Why?  Because stop gap measures in youth sports are not solutions.  Many times, they are feeble attempts by adults to change completely normal behaviors young children demonstrate inside the introductory process of exploring sports.  Naturally, we think about sports as the media shapes them for us; and and when our children's first efforts are not painting the same picture that we have in our minds of sports; we can quickly feel anxious, disappointed or an overwhelming sense of urgency to correct what is, otherwise, normal behavior by young children.  What we are looking for, even though it is how we are conditioned to think about sports after a certain point in life, is typically wrong for young children.

Building A Relationship Between Ours and Young Children's Thinking About Sports

As adults, many of us struggle to account for the overall conditions that support our young children's developmental in sports. Understandably, we don't because it is not demanded of us.  Even in today's Technology-Age, solutions for working with young children in sports do not exist online or in research.  As it has been for generations, we, like our forefathers, are forced to make up our own rules.  If the solutions work at all; they often only change the circumstances in which we, as parents or coaches, find ourselves in at any given moment.  Never really leading to our deeper understanding of the condition, or the relationship between ours and young children's thinking about sports.   

If you've ever had the pleasure of seeing someone who was good at coaching young children in sports; you quickly learn working with young children is more an art form than it is a science.  As I've always said, Mom's are from Venus, Dad's are from Mars and children are from Disneyland.  And arguably, never are the communication differences between adults and children more pronounced than in the introductory sports process.  Nobody can change the limitations surrounding young children's introduction to sports and fortunately we don't have to.  We need to begin a new.  Thinking like quality coaches do, like Disneyland, because if we all are to succeed in creating more positive and developmentally appropriate sports experiences for young children, we must begin to view our work with young children this way.

Often times we associate young children with chaos.  This is our Mars and Venus thinking.  I believe the phrase most commonly used by adults when coaching groups of young children in sports is, "It is like herding kittens."  Arguably, the chaos isn't in the children, the chaos is inside of you and in me.  Children are not the problem, you and I are.  Youth sports are not the problem, we are.  Everyday, the world's apparent chaos requires us to be on guard and to put it into order to feel safer and more secure.  When thought of this way, it reflects our own inner turmoil that perpetuates the gap that continues to exists between our Mars and Venus thinking and difficulty we have thinking in terms of Disneyland.  

Conclusion

 As author Michael Gerber, author of The E-Myth:  Why Most Small Business Don't Work and What to Do About It, said, "If the world reflects a lack of good sense, it is because each one of us reflects the same.  If the world acts as if it doesn't know what it is doing, it is because each one of us acts the same.  If the world is violent and greedy and heartless and inhuman and often just plain stupid; it is because you and I are that way."  The business of introductory sports for children follows the same principles. 

If young children are going to be changed, we must first change.  Unfortunately, we are not, as parents and coaches, being led to think that way.   For most, the approach to teaching children anything is a one-way street with billboards posted throughout that say, "My way or the highway!"  When we think in terms of the children against us basically what we are saying is, we want to fix our children so that we can remain the same. Our work with young children demands we look less outside and more inside ourselves for the answers to the conditions of working with young children.

~Coach Pickles

Coach Pickles' Jelly Bean Sports Salutes the Wiggles Hanging Up Their Colored Costumes

Today, Coach Pickles' Jelly Bean Sports salutes The Wiggles, Jeff Fatt (Purple Wiggle), Murray Cook (Red Wiggle) and Greg Page (Yellow Wiggle) and Anthony Field (Blue Wiggle) and their 21 years spent entertaining children around the world.  I could only hope to be so fortunate to have the same experience one day.  As I said in the New York Daily News article's comments; "these guys are true innovators that have inspired others like me who dare to commit to the field of teaching young children and especially, inspire those that don't accept mediocrity as a way of teaching." 

I attribute my success and early beginnings in the field of children's sports edutainment to these guys.  In January 2006, I was working on my doctorate at the time, and being trained as a part-time Youth Sports Instructor at a suburban Chicago park district.  I watched my coworkers struggling to keep young children’s attention as they taught them sports.  After class, I observed parents apologizing to us for their children’s misbehavior, and my frustrated coworkers complaining about how children don’t listen, follow directions, or focus. 

To be fair, these high school and college students' sports teachings were not wrong; they did it the way we all, as children, had learned sports growing up.  And of course, not many of us remember much before age 5 so nobody, including the children's parents, had anything to judge the quality or compare the introductory experience to.  So why would anyone have reason to think there was anything wrong?

Obviously, there were serious problems with disconnect between the adults and the children in this environment.  After a week of training and seeing the continued difficulty my coworkers were experiencing translating sports for young children; I couldn't stop saying to myself, "There has to be a better way."  At the time, I was a 2005 University of Oklahoma, Masters of Human Relations graduate; and inside the problem I  saw tremendous opportunity for improving the human relations of tot-sports.  In the beginning, I had a hard time defining what "it" was.  All I knew was young children were bored and unmotivated by ordinary introductory sports programs.

It was late 2006, The Wiggles were peaking in their popularity about this time.  Still caught in my dilemma of thinking about how I could improve sports for young children, I had an idea.  After much trial and error working with kids; I became inspired to buy tickets to a Wiggles concert. So what did I learn?

What the Wiggles taught me was that knowing what works and doesn’t work for young children often transcends our adult agendas.  It requires thinking less like an adult and more like a performer.”  The Wiggles educate and entertain in ways children can easily follow because they speak the language of children, one that is capable of keeping kids attention for over an hour straight.  They understood how to translate simple and complex ideas to children and this was exactly what sports was missing.  What might have been most inspiring was, as a someone trying to find hope in his idea, here were four grown guys who made a lifestyle out of creatively educating and entertaining millions of young children in fun ways that worked.  I found my calling.

The Wiggles were, and still are today, an example of  how to successfully work with (i.e. talk to, engage, and inspire) young children. I admit, it is hard to be creative and think with children in mind and create rich and robust learning experiences.  But as I've also learned, it is much harder to accept the outcomes that come from playing the part of the responsible adult, barking orders at children who, regardless of how hard we try, do not  buy into what we are saying or doing.  Committing to the extra work it takes to entertain children in learning environments on the front-end is, as I am sure Jeff, Murray, Greg, and Anthony would tell you, it's well worth it.

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/music-arts/original-wiggles-retiring-co-founder-anthony-field-announces-article-1.1079747#ixzz1vFydGkOM