If you’re interested in how to teach kids soccer, you are certainly not alone. Approximately 209,000 girls play high school soccer alone, while 284,000 boys play the sport. Every year more than 11 million people, both children and adults, attend summer camps and sport camps in America. Many of these camps are geared towards helping children develop their soccer skills. Most kids want to learn how to play soccer, and lots of parents are interested in the best way to help their children learn soccer skills and learn soccer moves. The key when it comes to soccer training tips for kids is to emphasize repetition while still keeping things fun and light. Whether you’re looking for the best summer soccer camp or just want to help your child at home, here’s some soccer training tips for kids to keep in mind.
Soccer Training Tips for Kids: The Most Important Skill of All
The most important skill that your child can learn is the ability to kick equally well with both feet. This does not come naturally to us, as almost everyone is born with a dominant side, but to be able to shoot and pass with skill, a person must be able to kick equally well with both feet. The earlier that you help your child develop this skill, the better off they will be. Start by kicking the ball back and forth with your son or daughter. Each time you do, yell out which foot you want him or her to use. You should also alternate which foot you use as well!
Soccer Training Tips for Kids: The Dribble
Dribbling is an easy skill to master because it’s simply fun. Just because it’s an easy skill to master, though. does not mean that children will naturally pick it up without some help. Your child will never learn to dribble by playing a computer game. They will learn to dribble by going to the backyard, the beach, or the playground with any sort of ball and just playing. Even if their first attempts are really just kicking the ball around with little purpose, they are picking up the fundamentals.
Soccer Training Tips for Kids: Learn to Pass
Both children and their parents tend to dream about that heroic dribble. In the heroic dribble, the child whips the ball effortlessly around defenders while fans scream their support. The child then makes it to the goal, shoots, scores, and wins the game. In reality, children must learn to pass properly before almost anything else. Soccer is a social sport. It’s important for your children to learn passing skills, and they can do this even if there’s no one to play with at home. If you have a wall, let your kids practice kicking the ball against it and passing it to themselves. As you play with them, alternate passing skills and trapping the ball with their feet.
Soccer Training Tips for Kids: Control, Not Power
A child’s natural instinct is to hit the ball as hard as they can, especially if they are trying play aggressively. You want your child to play well, but you also want them to understand that it’s more important to be able to control the ball well than to be able to kick it really far. Help your children to learn a solid, controlled kick, even if it doesn’t go very far. They need to learn how to get their whole body behind the kick with their foot under the ball.
Soccer Training Tips for Kids: Have Fun
The most important tip of all is to remember to have fun. If your children are not having fun playing soccer, they won’t benefit from all that soccer has to offer in terms of social, mental, physical, and psychological development. The worst thing you can do is scream at your child for a bad play or try to force them to do something they obviously hate. Make soccer something fun and soccer practice a fun thing you do together; send them to enjoyable
soccer summer camps, and they will be able to get the most out of this wonderful sport.