Want to be a great kids coach? Think like a video game designer...

I was reading this great article from Ash Smith over at www.superhumanperformance.org which was all about how kids developing amazing abilities by challenging each other and trying to outdo the last trick or skill they have performed.

It took me back to my childhood when I used to invent games with my brother and freinds to play in the park or the garden and I recognise now that this helped me to develop my abilities in a big way and also were the first steps on my coaching journey.

Essentially, I was using a constraints based model for game design without knowing it!

For example one of the games was a garden cricket game played with a golf ball and a really thin bat we called 'Golf Ball Nightmare'!

Golf Ball Nightmare (GBN) was so called for a couple of reasons..

1. It was a golf ball and if it hit you in the shin or on the knuckle then it hurt which was a nightmare. There was a healthy element of fear involved!

2. We played towards the house and if you caught one with the bat then it could hurtle towards the patio window. The bowler had to be brave and stop the ball from smashing the window so as to stop us from being grounded for the rest of our lives!

The game was intense but it was one of the best games we played, we would play for hours and took great pleasure whenever we smashed each oher on the shins and laughed as the other person hopped around holding their lower leg!

The reason the game worked was because it was brilliantly designed!

We started with the player experience...what did we want from the game?

• We wanted to all have a go at batting regularly so the game had to be hard so that people got out a lot.

• It had to have fear so that we could show our bravery or laugh at each other when we got a bit hurt but it couldn't be too dangerous or we wouldn't want to play.

• You had to show skill to stay in bat.

• Everyone needed to be involved, fielding is boring so we needed to make sure that fielders had some skin in the game. They really had to be on their toes to stop the windows getting smashed and us all getting into really deep trouble.

• The golf ball bounced more realistically than a tennis ball.

Most of this design happened by accident and we made up most of the rules as we went along, modifying and tweaking the way it was played in order to make it harder or easier, more dangerous or less dangerous.

A big part of the fun was making up the rules and coming up with the game formats.

Jane McGonigal is a game designer and she talks pasiionately about the role that games and play can have to enrich our lives. I can definitely align with that!

I am left thinking how much the youth sports experience is like this.

The vast majority of kids aren't playing garden games like this anymore as they are so hooked into video games that are designed by very smart people who spend their lives working out ways to make their games more fun and more addictive so that the kids want to play again and again.

So our challenge is to think like these super smart game designers and try and beat them at their own game. We have to create really 'sticky' activities that they are going to want to do again and again.

So here are some questions to ask yourself when you are designing your activity?

Is everyone engaged?

Is there a challenge that makes them strive to go beyond their abilities?

Do players get loads of goes or do they need to stand around and wait?

Does the activity require them to solve a problem?

Do they have to think about solutions themselves and work it out or do they get given the answers?

Do they get feedack that encourages the effort in trying rather than just praise which encourages not failing?

Does it simulate the game effectively, is it realistic to what they will confront when they play in matches?

For some of us, thinking through these activities and coming up with games or activities that answer these questions is a really challenge...

So I will give you a couple of secrets...

1. Just use trial and error.

The first go at anything is rarely the best version so be prepared to flex and improve as you go. Some of my best activities have come from me having to solve a problem in the session because something wasnt working and making a tweak that made the whole activity loads better.

2. Get the kids to design with/for you.

Kids are really creative and they love designing games. They will come out with some crazy ideas that you won't even think of, you can then distill these down into something that will be really good. I often ask the question "how can we make this even better" or "how can we make it harder". The answers are usually genius.

Some people are fearful of this because they think that they will look like they don't know what they are doing?

I would answer like this...

Do we want to look good...or do we want to get better? Do we have a Growth Mindset as coaches or do we have a Fixed Mindset?

I will leave Trev Ragan from www.trainugly.com to reinforce the point.

Get out there and coach ugly!

Using pressure to make training mean something

This is a guest post from Darren Cheesman, an ex international hockey player who is now a full time Talent Coach and Talent Coach Developer. Darren has been chirping at me on Twitter to finally write the book that I have been threatening to write which has been useful motivation and work has started.

Darren is really passionate about coaching, developing coaches and also developing talented players. The post is a really great insight into his approach which I hope you will all enjoy!

For more information about Darren you can find him at https://dc17coaching.wordpress.com/ or on twitter at @darrencheesman

Over to Darren....

It's a cold winter’s night and I’m a player for a premier league team. I turn up for training and go through the motions. I love training, always have, but tonight just didn’t do it for me and I can’t honestly think of a single thing I learned, nor did I take myself out of my comfort zone once.

This happens too often, and it happens way too often with sessions I see at all different levels. In a bid to make sure this happens as little as possible in my coaching sessions, I’ve tried to centre my philosophy around the concept of creating competition.

Why?

If there is something to win, the players tend to focus more on how to win and therefore solve the problems the session is asking.

How does it work?

Before deciding on whether to award points or not, I first need to figure out whether I want the session to be around technical shaping, increasing the pressure on the skill execution, or preparing for a match.

Technical shaping:

If I award points during a technical shaping section of training, the players will be conscientious about failing and therefore missing out on points. They will also feel a little hard done by if it takes them a little longer than others to get to grips with the concept or principle. Within technical shaping, I reinforce the effort (not the success) of the individual / unit in trying to execute, and probe about how they can improve.

Increasing pressure:

Once the players have a good understanding of the skill, principle, or concept, I award a points system that will reward players able to deliver under pressure. The competition means the opposing team are likely to be doing everything possible to stop you from gaining points and therefore you have to solve real problems in the quest to win the game.

Preparing for a match:

Skill acquisition and principle clarity sessions are about developing the player’s ability. It is about giving them the space to express themselves while developing concepts. There are times though when we are preparing for a match with specific roles and responsibilities in order to gain an advantage over our opposition. In these situations, points are rewarded to the players / units / team who can deliver those roles and responsibilities best.

This essentially means that there are parts of each session that are not for points. Players are told to make mistakes and express themselves. They are encouraged to do what they can to push themselves outside their comfort zones in order to truly master the skill, principle or concept. Then, there are other parts of the session where points are on offer and it’s time for them to focus on the execution of that development.

It’s noted down at the end of each session who has gained points and these are accumulated until the end of a given period. At school that period is end of a half term, with Futures Cup squad it was at the end of our 5 session training block, with other teams that period will be different.

The winner is then presented their prize and it’s a chance for them to be recognised as someone who focussed and works hard in training, something often overlooked.

One of the big things I learned from my time playing for Oranje Zwart in Hoofdklasse, the Dutch Premier League, was that training was made so hard and competitive that matches felt easy.

Hey parents! Your ‘support’ could be destroying your child’s chances (in sport and life!)

In the excellent 'The Talent Code' Blog, Daniel Coyle posted the following passage discussing the potential pitfalls of kids specialising early in sports...

"In the glossy heart of the 1980s, in the dimly lit halls of East Anchorage High School there walked a god. He was rangy, blond, and bore the cinematically perfect name of Trace Savage. And Trace Savage was awesome

(Just say it out loud: Trace Savage)

Trace Savage was awesome partly because he was cool, partly because he was nice, but mostly because he was the best all-around athlete any of us had ever seen: quarterback of the football team, starting forward on the basketball team, and track star. He was living our American sports dream, and the dream of everyone we knew.

Then, in the space of a few years, that dream changed.

Maybe it was the rise of superfocused prodigies like Tiger Woods, Andre Agassi, and the Williams sisters. Maybe it was the rise of parenting as a competitive sport. Maybe it was the ESPN-ification of youth sports, which lost its community base and morphed into a free-market bazaar of travel teams, trophies, and tournaments, with each kid (read: parent) seeking the holy grail of success: the college scholarship.

By the time the mid-nineties rolled around Trace Savage had vanished from the landscape like the white rhino. In his place stood a different species: the specialists.

Every sport became a highly organized year-round enterprise: indoor soccer in winter, hockey in summer, baseball all year round. Suddenly kids had to choose before they turned 10 or so, or risk falling behind the pack. The logic seems straightforward: if you want to be good at a sport, you should play intensively year-round…”

Early specialisation in sport is a big problem. It has been shown to contribute to higher injury risk, burnout and there are suggestions that it is actually detrimental to future sporting performance.

When I was at university I saw numerous examples of kids who had been elite stars as teens who had put hours and hours into their training, kids who had shown dedication, perseverance, grit…kids who had gone the extra mile, kids who were revered for their sporting prowess who just went off the rails as soon as they had the opportunity to do other things.

I would go as far as to say that my degree programme was actually a case study in wasted talent!

But specialising early can also have a real dark side. I saw examples of kids who displayed some pretty serious emotional problems as result of this.

One of these kids was Rob (not his real name).

He was one of the top ranked tennis players in the country throughout his childhood, he was dark haired, good looking, he was fun to be around and he had the swagger that came with the confidence of being one of the best. He had the world at his feet.

Then things changed…

His behaviour started to become erratic. He started to drink heavily, he would regularly spend all day in the pub, drinking and playing pool. He had a couple of difficult relationships with girls that involved him getting violent. His studies took a nose dive. In short he became a real loser.

As a friend, I found myself having some in depth conversations with him in an attempt to try and get to the bottom of his behaviour. They were usually after one too many drinks and sometimes these became pretty heated but I couldn’t stop myself. I could see the path that he was on and I couldn’t stand by and watch him slide further and further into despair. In our conversations it was clear he had a difficult relationship with his father who had largely been the driving force behind his tennis career. He was feeling some deep rooted feelings of resentment due to a feeling of losing a part of his childhood but at the same time he was also feeling regretful that he wasn’t living up to his father’s expectations of him.

I’m no psychologist but even I could see that this was a real double edged sword for him…resentment and regret…anger and shame.

I would love to tell you that he managed to come back from it all but unfortunately things got a whole lot worse…

He had a complete breakdown…

His behaviour became so crazy and he became so withdrawn that we had to call his parents and they came and took him home. We believe that he went into counselling.

I'm ashamed to say that I don’t really know what happened to him after that.

I hope he is OK…

It is hard to say that his tennis career was to blame for what happened to him, it was probably a whole host of things but it is pretty safe to say that the relationship he had with his father and the expectations that were placed on him contributed to him going down a path that then became a downward spiral into a complete meltdown.

You will see a lot of stuff on the internet about the role of parents in sport. There is a wealth of information out there that talks about how parents should act giving advice as to the the way to support their kids in sport.

But as I travel through the sports landscape it seems to me that none of this is hitting home. Perfectly rational people who really know what is going on seem to be acting against their better judgment.

Why?

There are a number of drivers which I have characterised below through the creation of a number of parent types.

1. The 'supportive' type

They have a powerful drive provide their children with the best opportunity to succeed. They invest financially and emotionally in their child’s development from an early age to thinking that this will get their kids the best chance in life.

After all, what self respecting parent doesn’t want to give their kids the best chance of success? Don’t we all have that secret dream that our kids will be amazing at something and don’t we want to do our utmost to give them every opportunity to succeed?

But what if this translates into an expectation and our children are just doing it as a means to get our approval and love? What are the potential consequences?

2. The 'keeping up with the Jones's' type

Then there is the societal pressure to be keeping up or keep getting ahead. I see this everywhere I go. Parents are almost obsessed with where their children measure up to others.

After all there is the whole 10,000 hours rule, if you don’t start early you will be left behind, right? (don’t get me started!)

3. The 'wear my kids like a medal' type

Worse still you have the parents who parade their kids around like trophies. We have all met them haven’t we, the ones who engineer the conversation so that they can talk about their kids various achievements “…oh yes, did I mention that (insert child’s name) has made it into the U9s o (insert sports squad / academy)”. This is just fuel to the fire.

Check out this video called ‘Trophy Kids’ for a real insight into this problem.

4. The 'it never did me any harm' type

"You have to push kids, right? If you don’t push them then they will never amount to anything...If I hadn't been pushed then I would never have got to where I am in life, etc, etc". This is the classic mistake of thinking that your upbringing is right for your children. Assuming that your children are just extensions of you and not individuals in their own right can be a source of major breakdown in so many parent - child relationships.

I think that every parent struggles with the balance of making sure we encourage and challenge our children to stretch themselves without stumbling into the realms of pushy parenting.

5. The 'push - wrap' or 'helicopter' type

These are the growing breed of parents who have very high expectations of their children and are constantly pushing them to achieve in all aspects of their lives. These are the kids that are grade 10 on the piano, play county or state everything, are getting straight A's in everything. These kids are flying and the expectation is that they will continue to do so.

And then they get cut from a team or they don't get picked in the starting line up or they get a bad grade and the parents come wading in and wrap their arms around their kids and challenge the coach/manager/teacher for daring to cause their child so much heartache.

Just when the child is about to learn a really valuable lesson about struggle and handling adversity the parent says "don't you worry my little one, I will protect you from the big bad world".

Julie Lythcott-Haims new book, "How to Raise an Adult: Break Free of the Overparenting Trap and Prepare Your Kid for Success" talks about this area in detail and is reviewed in a recent Washington Post article where the suggestion is made that:

"...mothers and fathers in affluent communities have been hobbling their children by trying so hard to make sure they succeed and by working so diligently to protect them from disappointment, failure and hardship".

The worst thing about all of this is that many people reading this will know someone like one of these charactisations (or will know people who are like them all at the same time!) but very few people will recognise this in themselves.

The reality is that we all have a some elements of these characters in us given the right set of circumstances and in lots of ways many of these characteristics can be very positive. The problem is when it becomes too much! The challenge is to have the tools to recognise when when it is becoming too much and to know what to do to correct the behaviour.

This is why I am so passionate about the work that Jamie Edwards does at www.trained-brain.com and the ‘Winning parent’ programme. Not only will it help parents to become more aware of their tendencies and help them avoid becoming any of these characters and the obvious associated pitfalls but it will also help them to turbo charge their support for their children which could really enhance their developmental journey in sport (and life).

I have teamed up with Jamie to bring the ‘Winning Parent Programme’ to the Talent Equation community and I am really excited about this as I think it is the missing link in the development package for talented kids.

There is a programme for coaches to help them to manage the parent - athlete - coach relationship and there is a programme for parents to help them support their child's journey.

There is also going to be a podcast, some webinars and also an exclusive live retreat for those people that really want to take their relationships to the next level.

I am really looking forward to it!

All the best

Stuart

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