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= Coaching Youth (Sports) =

Definition
A coach is a person who is a leader, supervisor of players and trains sports teams or individual players. Coaches are usually involved in administration, training and the representative of the team.

Responsibility
Being a coach of children is more about just winning. Youth coaches are supposed to be positive role models for children and encourage personal development in young children both physically, emotionally, and socially.

1. Positive Reinforcement
Using positive reinforcement as a coaching tool helps teach children to take responsibility for their actions. Coaches can use positive reinforcement in two ways: Physically or verbally.

Physically, you can give a gesture, like a smile, a pat on the back, a nod of the head, or a thumbs up so the players or individuals know they did well in the game or practice exercise.

Verbally, you can tell a nice try, good work, or continue to work hard. Giving children praise makes the player(s) feel good about who they are or what they are doing. An example is when the team loses a game, you can still give them praise and make them feel good about how hard they worked and how you can see they are slowly progressing every game.

2. Feedback
As a coach you always need to push your players, so they can perform to the best of their abilities. You always need to teach children, so they can continue to grow physically and mentally. Feedback should be firm but never end with shaming a child. For example: It was a good effort today, I will continue to push all of you, so you can all reach your full potential. The feedback should end with words of encouragement, so kids do not get upset and want to stop playing sports.

3. Enviroment
A good coach creates a caring environment among the team and himself/herself with each athlete he/she coaches. When coaches actually care about the players rather than just winning the coach will build a positive bond and this will make the players feel like they belong to a team or sometimes they think of it has a family. It is important to have a positive energy within a team and have a good relationship with your players because players could be in a toxic household and when they come to training it is the sport that makes them happy and potentially forget about the problems they are having at home. If, the training environment is negative and the coach is negative, this pushes kids away from sports and it continues to be a burden on children as their problems just continue to grow.

Impact As A Coach
Coaching is not for everyone, it takes patience, time, dedication, unselfishness and love for the game. The impact a coach can make on a child's life is long lasting. Every single player that you coach or joins your team will either remember you not only as a coach but also as what type of person you are. Coaches sometimes put to much focus on winning and not just because they want the team to be successful but also just to boost their egos. These are usually the coaches who bench players and do not care about every one they rather just win and simply that, these are the coaches who leave a negative impact on kids and usually the coaches in why kids quit. The coaches who have a balance of wanting the team to win and be successful but also developing every kid are the coaches who kids remember positively. This is because the kids see themselves getting better as well as winning which is why everyone plays sports, including kids.

Reference

 * 1) Fry, M. D., & Gano-Overway, L. A. (2010). Exploring the contribution of the caring climate to the youth sport experience. Journal of Applied Sport Psychology, 22, 294-304.

2. Hanson, D. (2008). The variety of organized youth activities in the United States and adolescents’ developmental experiences in them. In R. Bendit, & M. Hahn-Bleibtreu (Eds.), Youth transitions: Processes of social inclusion and patterns of vulnerability in a globalized world (pp. 151–162). Farmington Hills, MI: Ridgebrook

3. Zarrett, N., Fay, K., Li, Y., Carrano, J., Phelps, E., & Lerner, R. M. (2009). More than child’s play: Variable- and pattern-centered approaches for examining effects of sports participation on youth development. Developmental Psychology, 45(2), 368-382.