Tips from coaches for coaches!

How do you support teenage girls through the common challenges of pressure, mindset and a decreased motivation to stay involved?

• Working out coping strategies and setting achievable goals with them. 
• Enabling them to be able to talk about their feelings and pressures and supporting them in a safe space, while understanding their struggles.
• You have to create an environment where it's okay to fail, even if they try something and it goes horribly wrong, you need to positively reinforce them because they tried, and focus on execution of skills in sessions.
• Encourage and empower them to think about what defines them as a person outside of sport and how the traits they learn in sport can help develop them as leaders or coaches so that they can continue in the sport after active participation.

How do you support your female athletes through the changes of puberty?

• By not being judgemental and giving them space and support.

• Create an open environment where they can talk to you or another coach or team manager, if they are not comfortable talking to you.
• Don’t forget to check in on their life outside of your sport, ask them how their other sports are going, how school is going, how their family/dog/cat are!

How do you involve the girls in training to give them input and ownership?

• Include them in session plans, the organising of team building days and encourage them to share learnings with their team-mates and younger athletes.

How do you support your athletes during study / exam season?

• Prior Planning is key! This includes communication with both parents and athletes.
• Discuss training programmes and study schedules, allowing for training cycles to be adaptable so you can accommodate their physical and mental health e.g. dropping workloads when study priorities are high, while ensuring that they still feel involved and an important part of the team or squad.
• Keep observing them and their demeanour to gauge if they are becoming overwhelmed.
• Try to make sessions a bit more fun if possible during the hard study phase, avoid the complicated parts of the sport (complex plays, time trials etc), so they can switch off their brains and enjoy.

Tips for coaches whose teenage athletes have disengaged or are on the verge of dropping out from sport?

• Communication channels must always be open!
• Some teenagers play several sports and the time comes to decide on one, sometimes that’s not yours and you have to let them make that decision, if they pick your sport you have to work to make it worth their while.
• Provide pathways to continue with a different focus, whether that’s staying in the sport just for fun and fitness or moving into coaching etc.
• Never walk away with regrets!

Any other tips that you would like to share with your fellow coaches?

• Teenage girls need to know it’s not all about winning, winning is great and we will always try to be competitive and win games or races, but if we don’t, we will learn something from a loss and there is always another game, another competition another year. 
• Try not to get too frustrated with your athletes, allow them to become young adults. Sport is a pathway to a better life and the learnings you gain enable you to cope with all of life’s challenges and achievements.