Coaching children vs. Coaching adults: Does a coach need to change? (Part 2)
Will Vickery [00:00:08] Hello and welcome to our Coaching and Officiating podcast series. My name is Will Vickery and I'm one of the Senior Coaching Advisors at the Australian Sports Commission. Today I'm on the lands of the Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung people of the Kulin Nation and along with some special guests. I'm here to talk about some of the important topics that exist within community coaching.
Once again, I'm joined by Doctor Juanita Weissensteiner from the New South Wales Office of Sport and Jonathan Leo Ng from RMIT University to finish off our discussion where we're trying to get to the bottom of the question as to whether a coach needs to change their approach between adults and children.
If you haven't listened to part one already, I would highly recommend going back and doing just that first before listening to this.
The last time we all spoke, it was about the differences that exist between adults and children, as well as some of the ways the coaches could cater for these differences. This time, I want to move in a slightly different direction and start with trying to figure out what might be an issue from coaching kids in the same way that you would adults. Does it really make that much of a difference?
Jonathan Leo Ng [00:01:17] I think other than the points that we discussed with, physiological differences, that's a huge assumption you know that we make. For example, if we are coaching basketball or soccer and you constantly hear this on the field, coaches telling their athletes to space out. And the kids don't know what spaced out might mean right. To them, if there's no one around, then that could mean spacing out. But from a visual perspective as well, if the child doesn't know what it means to space out, they would think very differently from a cultural setting this expectations and coaches specifically telling them what are the visual cues, for example, to space out means that you're in front of the ball, so you're an attacking option. You don't have defenders around you, so paying attention to those visual cues becomes really important. And that might be quite helpful. And likewise, if we coach adults like children again, there's a bit of an assumption going on because some adults may have been, you know, involved with sports, that have similar, game knowledge. For example, as we talk about soccer, basketball, there's similar invasion tactics that's going on. And if we give too much explicit instruction, this might turn the adult off as well. So you need to have a little bit of flexibility from the coach's perspective. In coaching these two groups of people.
Juanita Weissensteiner [00:02:59] And then I think at the individual journey of the participant, you know, and, and you think of puberty and adolescence and there's so much happening at that time, you know, for young participants and athletes, and particularly in terms of the physical maturation. And we know, and look, there's absolute experts, more expert than me, but they're telling us that, as a participant, a young participant is reaching, you know, that, their peak height velocity. And that can vary for girls, you know, it's around, 10 to 12 for boys is around 12 to 14, where their body, their stature is rapidly growing. You know, in that year, with that there's changes in the biomechanics and the and importantly, the coordination and the control, of these participants, so they they're grappling with this new body that's elongating at a rapid rate.
Jonathan Leo Ng [00:04:00] And I guess, to put things into context with your question, will. If we are dealing with adults, if we are engaging with adults, we don't really have to you know, they've gone through all of that, that puberty percent growth spurt. You've gone through puberty. But then we have to start paying attention to the emotional stresses, you know, the stresses of life stresses in work in general. And that can, again, effect the performance level. So it kind it kind of affects individuals differently. With younger children it's more physiological. With the older adults it could be the external stressors. It's really about understanding your athlete's outlook. A previous research project I did, we looked and assessed the, physical literacy of our participants from 8 to 12. And we found that, you know, their variability of movement, competence, you know movement, competencies, the idea of how adaptable and versatile you are in different movement contexts. We found that the differences between the lowest scoring participant and the highest scoring participant was really, really wide in the early years to about eight and then as the participant age. So we're going from eight, nine, ten, 11 and 12. We saw that the variability was narrowing. So as a coach, I already know that I'm going to have a very large spectrum, of kids can do and kids that need more support at the lower levels as I increase the age groups that I'm coaching, this variability actually narrows so I can pay more attention to maybe more technical aspects at the higher, age groups as well. So if we understand it with the variability of movement, competence narrowing as we age with the older age groups, then it also changes the way you plan, your, your practice sessions.
Will Vickery [00:06:04] Yeah. I mean, it's a really fair point. I, I did actually want to kind of if we can dig into that a little bit more, I mean, it it does obviously, what you've both explained speak a lot to coaching the individual as opposed to, let's say, coaching an age group. There are obviously varied differences in even within people of different ages and genders and sports and all of these different things that are going on with that individual, right. You've both spoken about the physical differences that then quite significantly impact impacted, say, the technical skill that somebody has. And you've talked about the re-learning of those skills and physical movements. But yeah, touching on what you mentioned there, Jonathan, and I know you mentioned it as well Juani idea a little while ago about the actual impact that this has, whether it be emotionally or mentally on these individuals, if you're actually coaching them as an adult that is not physically but also emotionally or mentally mature, yet surely that comes with even more danger.
Jonathan Leo Ng [00:07:09] Pushes, right? Your parents are really keen on the sport and you want to participate. And so as a coach, I must understand that when I have these groups of individuals, they come in with me based on different needs and expectations and aspirations. And so we need to definitely cater to firstly, really engaging practices, really fun, even if they're not of their own accord, getting them motivated to want to come back for more. For example, I often see coaches, sometimes they have, at the younger age groups, say about like 10 or 11 at the end of the training sessions, they end the sessions with like a fitness activity. And, you know, a lot of times it's about all building match fitness and everything. But if we are engaging these young children in traditional notions of strength and conditioning and fitness-based activities, it can be quite repetitive, can be quite boring.
Will Vickery [00:08:12] And it's yeah, it's probably an easy, very easy way to turn these kids away from what could be a really engaging and happy experience.
Jonathan Leo Ng [00:08:20] So as a coach, and I'm thinking if I want to build match fitness, then let's relook at my my training plans. If I'm having again like 15 versus 15 on the field, then there will be people who are not engaged. But if I shrink the playing area, everyone's engaged. I'm building fitness into my training schedule rather than having it as an isolated group practice where, you know, it's it's just not as engaging as an adult would just because of the motivators to participate is different.
Will Vickery [00:08:51] Yeah. Just just as a quick question and then, before you jump in, Juani to that point, I don't think at any point we're suggesting either that adults just want to do like 15 on 15 or they want to, absolutely, just always do the match specific stuff. That's absolutely not the case. Am I right in saying that they're probably just a little bit more, willing to put in some of the the time to do more drill specific stuff that they potentially see an outcome related to as, say, or more so than, say, a child would?
Jonathan Leo Ng [00:09:26] Yeah. Well, I think as an adult, it's easier for us to understand the importance of fitness in match performance, isn't it? It's kind of like an abstract notion for, for children because they're like, I'm going to play at 110% regardless of, you know, time. They they're always putting in 110%. But for adults we understand the physiological impact. But then again, if you're an adult that's participating for the social aspect of the sport, do you really want to spend 30% of your training sessions, you know, like beating yourself up all the time? Well, would you rather experience that in a more holistic, enjoyable social event? Again, right, relating to our drills, or practices and training structures to why people are there in the first place. And of course, at the elite levels is completely different.
Juanita Weissensteiner [00:10:22] A lot of our finest athletes actually credit their investment in early play with their peers, where it can get really fierce for some, and their family and their friends as the key to their skill development where they got to. So why can't we bring back that creative play for adults? You know. Absolutely. You know, there's creative challenges making up your own rules. And I think of, you know, I've seen some great footage of seniors, you know, in nursing homes, and they're playing, they're playing with a balloon or they're doing and they're having fun, and you can see the joy. There's so much to play. I think, you know, we bring back the play, I think, not just focussed on early participants, but for adults and for seniors. I think that's just so important and so much fun. It's engaging.
Will Vickery [00:11:20] I guess from my experience as well. I've seen it firsthand in some of my own work as well, in the sense, with some cricket studies that I've done in the past that, working exclusively with people who are adults, they both they've played both all the way, I guess, from amateur, senior level through to professional level. And we implemented different training sessions. I mean, if anybody knows anything about cricket, it is clearly very traditional in the way that it trains. A lot of the time, it's in a confined environment that is very, very different to what actually happens on a typical match day. So what we try to do and Juani you might know of the Battle Zone stuff that Ian Renshaw first, and Greg Chappell, I should say to credit the two of them, they put together and we, we basically play centre wicket stuff in a, in a, in a much more engaging environment. You can change the rules. You can basically do whatever you want. Right. And I will say too, I think that this was the best argument I had to actually why we should really get, more play as you say Juani into adult, any training, whether it whatever sport it happens to be, I was able to convince a bunch of what I say about 12 young adult men to show up on a Sunday morning, at 8:00 like bright and early, like during the summer. You can imagine probably that they've had a quite an interesting and a very enjoyable Saturday night. So to get them to actually show up for about three months straight and actually just do cricket training on a Sunday morning, I was able to get that. And we never had any like it wasn't. It was always well attended. So I think that speaks a lot to just the fun you can have at training if you just modify just a few different things.
Jonathan Leo Ng [00:13:10] From a skill acquisition perspective, it's not just play without an end objective. I think you're actually challenging the players to solve different movement related problems, right? So you're presenting a new form of play. And with this new form of play, it's a new movement problem. And players. So because they're so well versed with the actual rules, they would try to manipulate the rules of the game they're trying to manipulate. So they're finding different configurations, they're building creativity, they're building resourcefulness. They are getting more versatile and adaptable. And that's the essence of plays isn’t it, I mean, if we link it back to playfulness in children, children engage in play because they use that to experience, explore and learn about the world. So this constant problem solving, decision making. That's involved. And this is a really, really important aspect if we want to build and develop adaptable athletes.
Juanita Weissensteiner [00:14:12] It really allows for creativity and innovation and to push the boundaries, you know, with the with the technique and with an approach, which I think is absolutely key. Yeah. It's I think it's really understated.
Jonathan Leo Ng [00:14:30] And I think one thing parents and coaches can also do is really to observe what kids do, what individuals do when they're adults or kids, what they do before the game. Because if you notice in the group dynamics, that happens before a training session, before the game, there's always some form of play has already emerged. Right. And if we take our individuals, take their lead and bring some of that playful behaving to practice that can really, really change things up. For example, the other day at the footy session there was a ball that was damaged. And so you had the, the, the insides of the ball, you know, rupturing out of its skin. And the kids were so fascinated about that ball, it was bouncing differently. It felt different to kick. It felt different. But they were all engaged in wanting to get that ball. Now, imagine if you had a training session where it was really hard or you had kids that were a bit more reserved to chase that ball. Having an introduce something like this would take that novelty will really engage them to do better. Another example I can give is, wanted to help my kids develop you know better throwing and catching skills. And so I said to them, they, we had, they had a free, rubber ball at one of our events, came back home and I said, you know what? Challenge each other. Why don't you throw the ball against the wall and have your your brother catch the ball. And so this created this game where they were just throwing the balls off the wall, and they called it Squish Ball. And I said to them, hey, do you know that what you're doing is actually kind of like a sport called squash? Showed them a video squash, and they like, oh, I think I want to get into squash now. So it's really yeah, it's really leveraging their their playful behaviour and bringing it into practice and using that to our, I guess, leveraging that to keep them coming back for more.
Will Vickery [00:16:23] It's funny. Sorry Juani, I was going to say I actually had a very similar experience as a kid with my brother. You say squish ball we actually had roof ball. Where yeah, we would we had the concrete out the front of the house and the roof, obviously of the house, but, a tennis ball where you essentially play tennis or squash or whatever you really want to call it, by hitting the ball up onto the roof and waiting for it obviously, to come down. And then we would take to it. So we were essentially playing tennis or squash or whatever, like I said. But yeah, it would keep us occupied for hours. Particularly in the, in the days that we didn't want to play cricket, which is rare, but, yeah, it was one of those things. We never played tennis, but we definitely transitioned into like more hand-eye coordinated by sports because of things like that. We loved it like that was it. It was a tennis ball and the roof.
Juanita Weissensteiner [00:17:14] We used to do, you know, I grew up in the 80s and, and be watching all the great, you know, cricketers, Mum particularly liked Imran Khan. So the, you know, the cricket was on all the time in our house. He was a wonderful athlete, and leader. But, we used to do we simulate, classic catches, you know, they’d show Rod Marsh and doing these classic catches, we do it in the pool, you know, with a tennis ball or different types of balls. And we'd throw it, you know, short. See how you'd go with the two hand scoop, left and right behind you, you know, keep challenging each other. Which was absolutely, so much, so much fun.
Will Vickery [00:18:00] Do we know anything about how children actually develop the skills that they gained from sport?
Jonathan Leo Ng [00:18:04] In the past, research that we we did, the same research that looked at assessing the movement competence of children. We found that, individuals that were performing at the higher end of the movement spectrum, they had better bilateral coordination or essentially the ability to use both sides of their, their bodies independently. And so one of the recommendations that stemmed from that research was in training. You could focus on getting injured for the individuals to use the non-dominant side of the body, because we just found that if coaches was strapped for time, looking at their ability to engage in both left- and right-hand activities was one marker that could distinguish, between the varying levels of movement competence. And so that was really, really an interesting find, something that we did not expect. But it came out quite strongly.
Will Vickery [00:19:04] I know I see it a lot nowadays with with kids that I've, that I coach, they are becoming a lot more ambidextrous. I mean, again, I coach cricket, so I speak to what I know about, but they fearless in the way that they approach this stuff now as well where I that definitely wasn't the case when I was going through my early years as a cricketer. Like, you would never try that stuff. You would always try and make sure that you're really good at the things that you were really good at. Whereas now, like they see the switch hits, so they see the other ways that they play cricket shots or throw the ball, throw the stumps down with the ball with it or the boundary catches are another really good example. They will absolutely try every combination of movements that they can think of to get the ball or whatever it happens to be, to where they want it to. So I mean, I remember in coaching kids who were ten and 12 years old who can switch hit, who can play reverse sweeps and things like this. I'm an adult and I can't do these things, and I've been playing since I was seven..
Juanita Weissensteiner [00:20:06] And there's some great research. I've seen it in well look in cricket, you know, bowlers being, you know, maybe that's a bit different. But in terms of tennis, you know, if you're facing a, a left-handed server and the same in cricket, a left-handed bowler. And so you've just been training mostly against a right-handed, tennis player, a right-handed but, bowler. There's a, you know, there's a perceptual advantage, with, with the left-handed, yeah, players.
Will Vickery [00:20:39] It kind of touches on what I wanted to ask you guys about next. What would you expect, or you want your coaches, to be doing both with kids and adults in kind of trying to implement these different ideas?
Jonathan Leo Ng [00:20:52] The one thing that I hope to see more of is people being comfortable with using a range of equipment when they're, when they're training, even for adults. So I see this in tennis, go to the tennis courts and you see adults engaging in adult tennis lessons and with, they are novices were always starting with, the yellow balls, right? The heavier balls, the speedier balls. But and then at the same time, the coaches is also focusing on the postural control, like the form and the technique in which you hit the ball. I think when you use when you use the red ball as an adult, playing with my kids, I actually think that I get better with refining my technique with the red ball because the red ball moves slower, it gives me more time to react. But because the red ball doesn't fly as fast as a green ball, I end up using more strength. And so when I'm approaching my shot, I have more time to think about what I really want to do, where I want to send the ball. But it's not, it's not, preventing my progress in any sort of way. It changes the dynamics of the game. And I think, if we are willing to do that, to use, like I said in the last session, be able to be comfortable with using a range of equipment, even if the equipment was, you know, meant for a younger age group. It really changes dynamics of the game and it gives you more time to to focus on other aspects.
Juanita Weissensteiner [00:22:27] I think, I know in high-performance sport the use of scenarios and simulations and, and whether, you know, you could you could do that too. I know when I was growing up, I'd have a scenario in my head, you know, I was competing at the Olympics and I had to achieve this, you know, shot by this time, you know, things like that could be fun, that sort of, ecological as well. So scenarios and simulations, which is, yeah, really important as well. And I think, too, I think the role of the coach, we always talk technical and physical. I think in terms of developing those key psychological skills in those cognitive aspects is a role of the coach to. For instance, you know, setting goals, working with the young participant at the beginning. Okay, these are the goals of the session. And then at the end of the session, going through a bit of a self-reflective process, you know, did you achieve those goals? Empower them to and think about what went well, what didn't go so well, what they might try. And next time, I think promoting and facilitating that self-reflection and that early self-regulation is really important, as well, the psychological dimension of that. And, and I'm aware of a colleague who's a Professor in, Belgium who does that with seven-year-old tennis players to, to really great effect. And, and we know from our research self-regulation is absolutely key to our finest athletes. But it's really important for learning, for, performance. And we know there is academic transfer of self-regulation as well. So I see the coach can sort of help facilitate those processes. Also, in terms of, kids turning up with the right equipment and being prepared now putting things into action. Are they prepared? They got everything they need in the kit bag supporting them in that. Even simply helping them to facilitate and understand about the importance of hydration and nutrition. So, they’re turning up with the water bottle is the water bottle fill for what's in the water bottle, hopefully some water and not a real sugary drink and get that sugar high, things like that. You know, if they've got snacks, you know, recovery is really important and sleep. So I think the role of the coach, they can keep an eye on that. And you can put that knowledge that we know is critical for participants, for athletes and for life. You know, the coach can help, facilitate and put those, that knowledge, that key knowledge and strategies into practice within training and competition, I think.
Will Vickery [00:25:25] Oh, sorry. I was just going to say, I think that really highlights the importance of the different role that the coach has in a younger athlete or a child in their development as an athlete, more so obviously than than an adult who potentially would have been influenced and has those, that had the has that ability to self-regulate, right, by the time they get into that more professional potentially, or even if they're just an awakened warrior, right. They know to bring the the esky with the drink and the food and all sorts of bits and pieces. But I suppose that's one thing that I, I've picked up from talking to you both, that one of the main things that a coach may need to do differently is think about those, I say little things, but those extra things that you don't necessarily need to be telling an adult about when they get to or from training.
Juanita Weissensteiner [00:26:16] Absolutely. And I think it's it can be you give that guidance but then you can go hands off because you, you know, we want to build the autonomy, don't we? We want to facilitate the autonomy. These kids that they're not we're not always prescribing and telling them what they should be doing. We give them a chance and then they work it out. Oh, hold on, I brought the wrong socks. Or I'm wearing my slippers and not my, you know, my joggers. You know, I think that's really important. There's, you know, you learn through mistakes. I think we've got to be comfortable in, allowing a bit of that, but giving guidance really early on, but letting them, you know, learn.
Will Vickery [00:26:53] In most cases, a lot of these things, like the band example that that you did give, begin their existence in a professional setting. And sometimes they make their way down to the community level. But but not always. So it might be that the community coaches don't always have this sort of knowledge and be able to then apply it to their own context. Is there anything that you would say to those at the community level who are wanting to adapt and modify their sessions a little more in this sort of way?
Juanita Weissensteiner [00:27:20] I'd say, watch experienced coaches in their sport and what, what they do, how they organise the training session, their approach, but also importantly look beyond just sport looking in other sports, other domains. And how, you know, coaches, approach the same things.
Will Vickery [00:27:41] And I guess to your point as well, from before Juanita is yeah, absolutely you, you we would recommend to go and observe what other coaches, whether it's your own sport or others to doing. But I think given the theme of this conversation as well, obviously be aware that you might not be watching the same age group or maturation stage or the people that you would be coaching, right? So you've obviously got to keep that in mind and make further adjustments to what you would then implement at a training session yourself. So obviously, yeah, observe, but be aware that that's not going to be the same personnel, environment, etcetera that you're going to work with. You're still going to make a bit of a, an adjustment so that you get the best out of your training session to suit the specific needs of your individuals, right? Whether they and particularly, again, that extra layer of kids, you've got to factor in other bits and pieces that you may not necessarily, have to do with adults.
Juanita Weissensteiner [00:28:35] And I'm thinking too, you know, you've got that young cohort and we've touched on it before in terms of physical maturation. And you will have in the same chronological age group, say it's under 13, you're going to have such a variance of kids at different levels of maturation, and you're going to have, late maturers in that mix. So, of smaller stature, they might have all the skills, but not the, the height and the strength, the power, the speed as yet. You’re can have those in the middle, and then you can have a really mature is going to have the, the two kids as well. So it's again yeah, thinking about where they're at in terms of their maturation. And we know, that a lot of our greatest athletes were late maturers. So you think about it, they were fantastic probably with their skills, you know, their cognitive, their psychological, their technical and with maturation, the strength, the power, the speed was then overlaid on those phenomenal skill foundations. But it requires a bit of, you know, requires the inclusion of a coach of the late maturers, not always picking the tall kids, but seeing that future potential, you know, in a, in a late maturing kid, is is really important. And then on the flip side, it's important to not rely on the physicality of an early maturing participant. Because at the moment they're taller and they might be stronger and more powerful, but if they don't develop their skills and their, you know, their mindset and so forth, they could easily be overtaken by the late maturers that has that all and then has that over laid speed, power and strength. So I always recommend you've got if you, there's a specific considerations for late maturers and for early maturers, and I think the early matures have wonderful, why not you know progress on that wonderful physicality early and develop make sure that develop that suite of skills to keep them in the sport and keep them progressing is is really, really important.
Will Vickery [00:30:58] I think that's a fair point. Yeah. Particularly if we look at it from an engagement perspective. Right. If, if, if that early maturer, is associating their positivity the, the way that they approach sport, the fact that they want to be there every week with the success that having because they're big and strong. If people start to catch up, they potentially are losing that connection because it's not, it doesn't align with what motivates them potentially. So absolutely, I agree, and I think that's one thing that we need to really think about. And I don't think it actually gets talked about enough, to be perfectly honest, that particularly early maturers is also need to be engaged in other ways as opposed to just being really, really good at a sport early, early on. What else are you going to do to keep them in the sport, to keep them involved? Yeah, and I say that as somebody who was a late maturer, so I actually had to kind of build the way that I approached it a little bit differently. And I've loved obviously staying in sport as a result. But and I think that gets talked about an awful lot more than it would be keeping early maturers is involved for a similar reason.
Jonathan Leo Ng [00:32:10] Coaches want to win. We all like to win as well, but we understand the age groups that we're we're dealing with and engaging with. We know that there's a whole lifetime ahead of them. And so with the early maturers, yes, they might be the taller ones, the more the ones who are more strength. If we're only playing them in certain positions because of their physical attributes, then we're not really helping them to develop overall or holistic movement competencies, because we understand that if you play in different positions, you get to develop other aspects of technique, other aspects of skill. And so we have to think about changing the rules. And I see this happening quite often in community sport. And and kudos to all the coaches there, because I think we're starting to see that beyond needing to win we also want to ensure that the team develops holistically. So given our giving the smaller guys that play, you know, more attacking positions may not necessarily be bad because the smaller guys being more agile, they get to see things from the different perspectives as well. They might find different ways in which they could find an attacking gap. And so that that one thing, you know, that we can do, changing up the positions even on competition days and not just at training on competition day as well. We need to be confident that, I'm doing this not just for the win. I'm also doing this because I know that the team has to be developed holistically and not just key players. Yeah.
Will Vickery [00:33:44] And yeah, I, I 100% agree with that. And I really subscribe to the fact of changing positions within games or across games or like, I would always do that as a cricket coach of of young teams in a sense that there's no way anybody should be specialising as I'm an opening batter or I I'm an opening bowler and I only ever get a bowl leg spin. Absolutely not. I mean, if kids want to go down and pursue that path, I would never stop them. However. I would never have the same opening pair open like taking up the batting, yeah, two weeks in a row or I'd change up the the keeper week to week, things like that. Give them exposure to as much as you can, so that they are accustomed to everything that can exist in that sport. And I think that I can see has really helped broaden the skills of the of the young kids that I've coached anyway.
Jonathan Leo Ng [00:34:38] Absolutely. And you can even gamify that process. You can have some designated weeks, like weeks one, three, five in this season where the coaches are predetermining your playing positions, but then other weeks you can have, you know, like a lucky lucky draw spots where this play is going to play in that position. So you gamify the whole experience and and thinking about the effective domain, they don’t, like the individuals, the young individuals don't grow up perceiving that they're only ever going to be in one position because they're coming with it with an open lens, right? An open page. I'm always going to be adaptable. I may not be playing this position, in this attacking forward, but you know what? I'm comfortable. I've experienced it in training. I've experienced it during weekend games as well. I'm going to be all ready. So, you know, just gamifying that whole process and it goes back down to this, perhaps also working for for adults at the recreational stages.
Juanita Weissensteiner [00:35:35] And the reality of it, look, I'm unashamedly a Canterbury Bulldogs fan, and a huge fan of captain, Stephen Crichton. Number one fan. He's the new captain. And I think of Stephen, and he obviously has played all different positions in the, you know, in rugby league. And you see that in first grade. Now, you know, he was usually a centre, but he was playing fullback because Canterbury, the fullback got injured. So it has to happen, you know that versatility and adaptability at the even at the professional levels in those sort of team sports, you certainly see a lot of that happening.
Will Vickery [00:36:16] Yeah and I mean it obviously, as you say, for that specific example Juanita, that's clearly been a result of something that happened really early on in his pathway. Like there's no way that, I mean, for for all, you know, he could have been a really early mature and could have been really big and potentially he played an awful lot in the front row as a kid. We don't I mean, I don't know, you might, but clearly something has allowed him to diversify his skill set so that by the time he's become a professional, his coaches are providing all of these different options and opportunities to allow him to adapt to the different needs and requirements that exists within competition, like you wouldn't be successful otherwise. So I think that speaks volumes as to the coaching that somebody like that has had and has provided them with all those different opportunities. I think that's, if nothing else, really highlighting what we're suggesting here about, like focus on what the individual needs, not necessarily what you think they want or should be doing. It's actually what they potentially require in the long run, not just to be a really good athlete, but I think we're also saying that this highlights a lot of just individual characteristics like Stephen Crichton, I would say has become quite resilient because he's had to adapt to different environments, different positions.
Jonathan Leo Ng [00:37:43] Because we know that children who are more exposed to different forms of movement experiences, whether in sport or whether at the playground, they are the ones that become more versatile, more adaptable because they're always seeing things as a challenge that they want to solve. And so this really cultivates a really positive attitude in not just saying, I've got this physique, this is where I play best. They shouldn't be thinking that I'm playing best at the younger ages. At this point in time, they should be saying, I'm going to make the best of any position I'm going to be playing in. And that's where parents can come in, exposing kids to the widest range of movement experiences ever.
Will Vickery [00:38:29] I think it's really important that we really highlight that although a lot of this research and a lot where we're talking about very heavily kind of leans to this is what we could do with kids, and it really shows the outcomes that kids are going to have as a result. This obviously transfers well into adulthood, right? That this transferability of skill, physique, confidence, etc., all of these things are actually what make for a well-rounded, not necessarily just athlete, but obviously because we're talking about sport. Probably focus on that. But this idea that somebody is a risk taker or makes them potentially a really good decision maker when they become a little bit more, I guess, professional or even just play more of a weekend as an adult, those sorts of things, they become more confident taking those risks. They they are less inclined to kind of sit back and just wait for things to happen. They might be the person that makes the difference on the sporting field and things like that. They they have those skills in addition to the technique and the physique, right? Like this actually lays the foundation for what is potentially going to come well into adulthood.
Just to wrap things up, if there's one thing that you want coaches to take away about coaching children and coaching adults, what would that be?
Juanita Weissensteiner [00:39:49] I think really look and understand that participant in front of you in a holistic sense. So you know, what is their capacity, the capability, what's their motivation, their aspiration, where they're at in terms of maturation, their skill set, even their life context. So I think it's really important to see the participant as a person. A whole person is absolutely key. And that should inform, your support as a coach.
Jonathan Leo Ng [00:40:22] YeahJuanita said that beautifully and I would just like to add on these three points. As, as coaches, we want, maximise engagement. We maximise engagement by ensuring that game space design, are small sided game so that there aren't pockets of people being active and pockets of people and not being active. So we maximise engagement and when we do that we maximise enjoyment. And this is where rethinking how training sessions can look like, involving different equipment, different games. And when we maximise engagement we maximise enjoyment. We do this with the learner at the centre, or we do some placing, and approaching things with a learner focus, design that, that, that will be, most enriching for not just coaches but also, the individuals that we engage with regardless of age groups.
Juanita Weissensteiner [00:41:24] And I'd say bring back the fun, bring back the play, have fun with it.
Will Vickery [00:41:30] Bring the inner child out essentially.
Thank you both for joining me for the second time. Very much appreciate that. And, being able to lend your insight, really good insight. I really hope the listeners have got something from this, and hopefully we've been able to answer the question as to, well, I would hope we have anyway, whether or not we need to coach our children differently to we, are coaching adults. So, thank you very much.
Thanks for listening. To learn more about community coaching head the Australian Sports Commission's Community coaching web page. I'm Will Vickery and I look forward to you joining me for the next podcast in the Coaching and Officiating series. If you like today's podcast, please follow us wherever you get your podcast and share this podcast with your teammates, fellow coaches and officials, and friends.
This podcast was produced in the lands of the Ngunnawal People by the Australian Sports Commission. We pay our respects to their elders, past and present, and recognise the outstanding contribution that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people make to society and sport in Australia.