Having coached grassroots football in the UK since 2009, and working with youth footballers since he graduated from Warsaw’s Physical Education Academy, our head coach Pav is an expert in youth football and child psychology.
That’s why he’s just released his third book. Reading Kids: Secret tips behind children behaviour” gives coaches, parents and players an insight into child psychology during youth sport. The book particularly focuses on communication, and how children respond to adults when we communicate with them properly. It also focuses on children’s motivations – be it short term or long term, child creativity in sport, and good/bad behaviour in youth sport.
Using his knowledge from over 10 years of hands-on football coaching, combined with the knowledge he gained during his Masters at University in Poland, the new book combines the complexities of child psychology with experiences from the training ground. Ultimately, the result is a definitive guide to coaching youngsters – not just in football, but in youth sport overall.
For any coach, learning the techniques and tools to overcome challenging child behaviour is priceless. Understanding the way children think, and their motivations to act helps you as a coach move forward with your approach, and coach better.
Failure to know how to communicate with children can have an overwhelmingly negative impact on their learning, and therefore the way they play any sport. Only talking to them negatively i.e shouting orders at them, or, giving them instructions that are too easy/too hard can lead them becoming disinterested in the game. Pav’s new book covers how to avoid doing this, and instead, how best to communicate with youth.
From the physical barriers expected during sport to the emotional and mental barriers, this book helps the reader learn the tools how to help children develop and flourish on and off the pitch.
If you want a book that gives formulaic football drills and session plans, this book is not for you. If you want a book that challenges you to grow as a coach and better respond to the needs of the individual children you coach, then this book is for you.
Owing to the fact individual children all have their own unique ways of learning, this book helps you take a step back and look at learning through the eyes of the child – not as an adult. This allows you to approach training or coaching with a fresh pair of eyes and think about introducing more challenging and creative methods to help encourage personal development of the children you work with. Off the back of this personal development, you will see results, and Pav’s book will help you!
If this sounds like something you’d like to learn more about, purchase Pav’s new book from Amazon here, or download for free on Kindle for the rest of November. Check out Pav’s recent interview on BBC Radio Norfolk to hear more about what he has to say about youth football and the role child psychology plays in it.
