Did you know that 70% of all kids quit organized sports by the age of 13, with girls quitting at 6x the rate of boys?
Alison Foley, Boston College’s Women’s Head Soccer Coach, and Mia Wenjen, parenting blogger at PragmaticMom.com, help coaches — both parent volunteer and professional — were motivated to write a book about coaching girls because Mia had always turned to Alison for advice when her daughters experienced “drama” on their soccer teams.
Alison’s advice, gained from coaching young women professionally for more than two decades, also comes from the point of view of a mother. She is a mother of a young female athlete who plays soccer at a high level.
Mia’s husband, a volunteer parent coach for their two daughters and son, helped to make a list of all the topics they faced, from picking captains, the importance of growth mindset, issues around body image and puberty, as well as the challenges of coaching your own daughter.
Alison and Mia also enlisted the help of fifteen professional coaches from a range of sports, including former Olympian athletes, to share their advice on what girls need from a coach to allow them to flourish in sports, and most importantly, have fun.
Mia and Alison will be contributing to AYSO weekly to share advice to help coaches keep girls in sports. They hope that readers will add to this conversation with questions about topics they would like advice on. Please email pragmaticmomblog@gmail.com. We look forward to working together to keep girls in sports.
Mia Wenjen blogs on parenting, education, and diverse children’s books at PragmaticMom. For more information about HOW TO COACH GIRLS, please visit our website. It is available for purchase at Audrey Press.
Alison Foley is the head coach for women’s soccer at Boston College. In addition to co-authoring HOW TO COACH GIRLS, she created a winter training class, Soccer on the Mat, that combines Brazilian feet skills with yoga.
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