Mental Strength: Expert Info on How To Be Great Soccer Parents
Soccer parents, if your child is between 6 and 10 and just LOVES soccer, then playing soccer with them in your backyard or nearby park is essential. You want to focus on their enjoyment and effort, not just on the results.
This article is for youth soccer parents whose kids are between 11 and 14 years of age.
Soccer Parents: Let’s begin at the beginning.
It’s tough being a youth soccer parent, especially if your child has ambitions for the game. 
So, the game is becoming more serious. Your child is somewhere between 11 and 14, and he or she still loves playing soccer and dreams of playing soccer at the very top level. Your youth soccer player yearns to improve, still looks towards heroes in soccer, and wants to be like them.
You want to encourage a growth mindset and support your player … not pressure them.
But let me tell you this … let me get this across with as much clarity as possible.
Very little changes for most youth soccer players at 11, 12, and 13 years of age.
The game is still about fun, physical literacy and life skills. Your child must still love to have a ball at his or her feet.
THAT THRILL OF HAVING A BALL NEXT TO THEM MUST STILL WASH THROUGH EVERY BONE IN THEIR BODY.
That’s important—that’s the feeling that makes the game last a lifetime. They must also still use their soccer experiences to become more accomplished players… agile, balanced, and coordinated. As they grow through their early teenage years, their physical literacy must mature with them.
Those life skills are even more pertinent now. As your child becomes a teenager and develops a stronger sense of self, empathy, teamwork, and discipline—to name but a few—are soft skills that must be experienced, used, and even misused at times.
By playing soccer, youth soccer players experience teamwork. They also have an opportunity to enjoy winning and learn how to cope with losses. They can learn key communication skills with those in power. At this stage of their lives, their interpersonal and intrapersonal abilities and capabilities are outlined.
So, between 11 and 14 soccer builds on, reinforces and solidifies what kids learn from the game between 6 and 10.
When serious enthusiasm lingers, as a soccer parent, you can start to prepare for your child’s future in the game. As your child matures, their skill level becomes more important. That first touch, dribbling, close ball control, passing, shooting… these skills must be improved.
It is wonderful to keep those backyard games going that I discussed in Part I. Where you can, encourage other kids to play in these informal sessions. I say ‘others’ because skill isn’t developed in a vacuum of self.
Skill can’t be developed alone. You need others involved—you need 1 v 1 garden games and 2 v 2 games, and if possible, 3, 4, and 5 kids.
Cones aren’t enough – your youth soccer player needs live opponents to help his or her nervous system develop the skill that separates him or her from the rest.
YOUR PLAYER NEEDS TO BE EXPOSED TO DECISION MAKING AND CREATIVE PROBLEM SOLVING.
The presence of other players and the competition they bring will help facilitate this process—and this is not the same as an organized soccer team practice.
Just imagine it now: your child playing with her friends in your backyard. They’ll have fun and keep it competitive — kids always play competitively. They’ll make up games. Games that deny space. Games require great footwork, accurate passing, and a dead aim for the goal. And they’ll keep playing. They’ll go a goal down and keep playing. They’ll go a goal up and keep playing. They’ll try all kinds of different moves to outfox their opponents … their friends.
This is how young soccer players learn a skill. This is how they learn performance. This is how they understand mental toughness. This is how they learn to win.
So backyard games … with others! That’s a powerful combination.
As your youth soccer player becomes a teenager and plays competitive youth soccer:
During this time, your child may become more heavily involved in club youth soccer, which can present some challenges.
In general, let the coaches coach.
Note: Everyone knows giving instructions from the sidelines is tempting, but your input can be overwhelming and contradict what the coach says. Trust the coach and let your child play freely without constant direction. Plus you want to teach respect for referees, coaches, and opponents, and we all know kids mimic adult behavior. If soccer moms and dads stay calm and respectful during games, youth soccer players will see this and it will help them.
Soccer coaches are the experts and will have your child’s best interests at heart. Some make misguided decisions — just as some sports psychs do as well … they’re only human, so be tolerant and be fair. If you don’t like how your child is being coached, get a second or even a third opinion. Talk to the Director of Coaching at your soccer club.
I’m often receiving messages from disgruntled parents because their child has been dropped because of their height. If your child is small … perhaps the smallest in the group? Find patience. Patience, patience, patience.
Support your youth soccer player in being courageous. Ask them what fearless looks like? Feels like? If your youth player is omitted because they’re small, then be delighted to run a mile from the coach and club that allows this to happen. They don’t know what they’re talking about or what they’re doing! They’re cowards who don’t understand that soccer is about space and time, as well as expression, ball skills, decision-making, and self-awareness. That is what soccer is about. That is what the best Europeans are. That is what the best South Americans do.
So don’t sweat physicality. Soccer is a late specialization sport. Your player will develop the strength … eventually!
AS THEY REACH 14 AND 15, IF YOU CAN, HELP THEM COMPETE AGAINST OLDER KIDS.
The challenge playing ‘up’ against an older player will be enormous, but worth it. They have to think quicker and act faster. They have to anticipate and react to lightning fast. They have to look up more and act on what they see. The mental and physical pressure will do wonders for their soccer brain. It will suffocate them and stretch them.
AT 14 AND 15 STRETCHING IS A NECESSITY … BUT SO IS SUPPORT.
So please support them. Give them a hug when they lose… and they will lose. And tell them it’s okay when they’ve played badly… because they will play badly.
You want them to lose and you want them to play badly. These are the years they learn that all-important blueprint for resilience. And even the top professional soccer players make mistakes.
There’s an obsession with kids winning and playing well all the time.
THIS IS A MYTH … A BIG FAT LIE THAT HELPS MISGUIDED COACHES AND PARENTS FEEL GOOD ABOUT THEMSELVES.
It’s your child’s game, so let them play… let them win and lose, succeed and fail. This kaleidoscope of experiences will help them later in life.
.
A global sports psychologist and author specializing in soccer, Dan Abrahams is based in England and works with professional soccer players in the English Premier League (EPL). Abrahams has worked with hundreds of soccer players – many who play in the English Premier League (EPL). From working with players at Crystal Palace, QPR, Fulham, and West Ham among others, Abrahams counsels players on how to play at peak performance. Abrahams has authored several books and has a Soccer Academy as well.
