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Parents paying young players for scoring can have negative impacts technically, tactically and even socially. Carly Tobin speaks from personal experience...
Parents always want the best for their children and, broadly, there’s nothing wrong with that.
But, sometimes, they push the boundaries too far. Some parents don’t always understand the long-term consequences for their kids.
Paying their children for scoring goals is one such issue – and it is a growing situation in youth soccer, particularly in England.
Some may ask what is wrong with it. Well, I’m not here to judge anybody. But it’s prudent to be aware of negative consequences on development.
Rewarding goals financially may, on the face of it, seem, to parents, a fairly harmless internal incentive or reward. But it can cause a negative impact on the team, with children making scoring a main purpose in the game.
It can affect where they play on the field, making them only want to play up front. It can affect them mentally, leading them to become frustrated and angry when things aren’t going their way. This, in turn, affects their psychological development and enjoyment of the game.
As well as the technical and tactical issues it creates, it can also affect players socially, if they won’t pass the ball and be a team player – especially when you get to a higher age category or bigger pitch.
Being a team player is important and if you have someone whose sole focus is scoring goals for selfish reasons, it can negatively impact the team bond, cause widespread frustration and possibly boil over into friction between parents, as well.
When a coach has a philosophy on how they want their team to play, a lot of the training goes out of the window when a child is encouraged to be extrinsically motivated by parents offering financial rewards for goals.
There was one child in my girls’ U9s team who got £10 per goal and it was having a negative impact on both her and the team.
The girl in question was a very good player and was capable of beating multiple players and scoring, but it resulted in other players on the team never getting on the ball. The girls became upset to the point that they didn’t want to play.
We don’t want to stop children from scoring, but we want them to make the right decisions as to when to dribble and when to pass to someone in a better position.
I encourage the girls to make good choices and explain it is just as amazing to help assist someone else to get a goal. We always mention who got assists and praise that contribution as much as the goals.
We had to have the dreaded conversation with the parents to explain that rewarding players financially for goals wasn’t helping us as coaches, and wouldn’t help the girls.
We decided that setting players specific goals to work towards was much more beneficial, and would have a positive impact on the players both individually and as a group. Each girl now feels more part of a team and we have seen a better improvement in their play on matchday.
So please encourage your players’ parents not to pay their children. Instead, suggest counting their tackles, passes or saves, encouraging hard work, and giving them targets to help them improve as a team, which will make them better players.
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