3 Essential Skills to Develop in Young Girls Soccer Players

As a parent or coach of a young girl soccer player, there are a lot of skills you are trying to teach. Dribbling, working with others, and running are often the skills we focus on. However, there are three skills that are essential to giving your young soccer player the best experience possible and developing them into a well-rounded athlete.

Here are three essential skills to develop in young female soccer players. While we focus on young girls here, these are skills that any young player would benefit from. 

1. Confidence 

Many young players (and adults!) struggle with trying something new.  Maybe the new skill is difficult to understand or perform. It’s vital to let your young soccer player know that everyone has a hard time learning new skills, and just because it’s difficult doesn’t mean they’re “bad” at it. 

When learning a new skill, try to use phrases like “Nice effort!” and “Good try, let’s do that again”. This lets your young female soccer player know that effort is rewarded over performance. Words like “good” and “bad” should be avoided. And if they are getting frustrated, it’s ok to let them do something that they’ve mastered to boost their confidence again. 

Try to encourage their confidence by asking them what they are afraid of. Is it falling? Is it losing a game? Are they worried about what other people think? If they are able to identify what they are afraid of, you can work with them on reframing their language and self-talk. Below are some examples of reframing self-talk for young girl soccer players.

• “I can’t do this” = “If I don’t try, I will never succeed.” 
• “What if I miss?” =  “What if I make it?”
• “I don’t want to look silly” = “I want to be a person who gives my best no matter what.”
• “This is hard” = “This is hard and I am learning.”
• “I’m not good at this” = “I’m not good at this yet, but I can learn to be.”
• “I keep missing/messing up” = “Every time I practice, I am getting better even if I don’t feel it.”

Remind them that it’s good to make mistakes. Otherwise, they won’t learn!

2. Resilience 

Resilience is something soccer players of all ages have a hard time with. The younger you teach your players about it, the better. As much as we want to avoid our young players getting hurt in any way, it is unavoidable. They will be physically knocked around on the soccer field, they will feel frustrated when they don’t perform well, and they might get upset with a teammate. These are all normal parts of interacting in the world, especially on a sports team. 

Resilience is a tough skill to teach, so it’s important to model it for your child. How do you act and speak when you are down or frustrated? In what ways do you speak about yourself? How do you react to other teammates and parents? 

Check out resources from organizations like Soccer Resilience that aim to teach these vital resilience skills to young girl soccer players. 

Remind them that everyone gets knocked down. It’s not about how many times you get knocked down; it’s how many times you get back up. It’s an old saying, but it rings true. Resilience and confidence go hand in hand. The more the players learn to trust themselves and practice bouncing back after a setback, the more confident they become on and off the field. 

3. Teamwork

Teamwork is very simple: stronger together than apart. Young soccer players may already have an idea of teamwork from children’s shows and books emphasizing the importance of using your team. But what happens when they hit a snag? 

It’s normal if your young soccer player doesn’t want to pass or feels upset with a teammate. It’s important to remind them that everyone at every age has to use teamwork as a skill, and it can be difficult with different personalities and disagreements.

Below are a few good questions to ask them when they are struggling with teamwork. They don’t have to come up with an answer at the moment, but these questions will get them thinking about how to be a good teammate and what it means.

1. In your own words, what happened? 
2. How did that make you feel? 
3. How do you think your teammate felt? 
4. What do you think being a good teammate is? 
5. When do you feel your best on the soccer field? 
6. When do you feel your worst on the soccer field? 
7.  What did you want to have happened at that moment? 
8. What part of this can you take responsibility for?
9. What would you have done differently next time? 
10. Who do you think is a good teammate? Why? 

Ultimately, teamwork is repetition. The more your young girl soccer player practices being a good teammate, the better they will be. 

Find A Mentor

It helps to find a mental resilience mentor, like a female coach or older player or these female soccer stars championing mental health. Show your young girl soccer player that it’s okay to have feelings and that it’s important to work through them to build the essential skills of confidence, resilience, and teamwork. They’ll be stronger for it!

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