Positive Reinforcement is Critical

My daughter’s club volleyball coach is an amazing coach. He would thank players for running for an out of bound ball that they had no hope of getting to. He’s say, “Thank you so much for running after that ball.” And they would walk through fire for him. I asked him walking over to the team dinner that night if he had always coached this way. He said that he used to be the coach that was the hardest on the most promising player, but he learned that you can’t coach girls that way.

female players can't be in the unknown

Positive Reinforcement is Critical

Girls want to be pushed but they need some positive reinforcement. They have to feel that when you’re pushing them, you still believe in them. Which means that you can’t tell them at the end of practice; they need a small amount of positive feedback during practice.

A female player can’t be in the unknown.

A female player can’t be in the unknown. You can assume that because she scored five goals in the small sided game that she knows that she had a good training session, but it’s not that way.

I just saw that yesterday in training, they can get better during that training practice if you can encourage – and not inflate – but when they do something that you want or something positive, if you just give them a couple words of encouragement, it goes really far for girls. And if you think that they know that they are doing really well, it’s not the case.

Once you’ve noticed a player has done something positive, compliment it right away. A player will grow from that.

… to read the rest of the chapter, you’ll have to wait for the book to come out.

p.s. To learn more about How To Coach Girls, check out Instagram, Twitter and Facebook. It’s available for purchase here.

How To Coach Girls Alison Foley Mia Wenjen coaching book for girls

 


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