PitterPatter Footsteps PlaySchool and Aftercare

Photo of the day 💙

Dear School Sports Coach

I wonder if you know your power...

Decades from now, you may not remember the kids in your team, but I can promise you, they will remember you. Your influence in their lives, one way or another, will continue.

Just a few reminders:

You don’t make children do better by making them feel worse. The worse we feel, the worse we do. Simple. You do the maths.

You don’t build strengths by criticizing weaknesses. Studies have been done on this. When the focus is on building strengths, weaknesses improve naturally.

Balls WILL be dropped. Shots WILL be missed. Off days, for all of us, are normal. We’re human, we all make mistakes. Mistakes are our greatest teachers. Every single one of us know when we’ve messed up and we feel bad enough. Our kids don’t need to be made to feel worse.
Encouragement, not criticism, is what helps any of us do better the next time.

You don’t produce a winning team by
instilling fear into them. No one, absolutely no one, can do their best or improve any skill, whatsoever, when brains are operating in fear. We rise by lifting others, not by slamming their efforts to the ground, however inferior these may seem in your perspective.

Children will do their best for a coach they respect and admire. Focus on getting to really know the kids in your team and build a relationship with them. You’ll see amazing things happen on the score board.

Sport is not just about winning. And when you keep hammering that skewed perspective to kids, you really take all the joy out of it. Of course we all love winning, but who wants to play a sport when there’s no fun in it. Winning is the byproduct of a great team. Great teams are built through great relationships with great coaches. Try be great. Please just try.

You don’t improve performance by sarcasm and cutting comments. There are only three reasons that anyone uses sarcasm- insecurity, social awkwardness and hidden anger issues. Please redirect these personal challenges. None of them should be directed at children.

It takes very few words to break the kids in your team down. Your tone and body language are powerful too. Words can inspire or they can destroy. If destruction is your goal, you are definitely in the wrong profession.

You don’t encourage high performance through shouting and belittling. No one has ever walked past a room where someone is shouting and thought, “Wow, they’ve got this under control.” Shouting is only a sign of how OUT of control you actually are. Try building a relationship with your team first. I promise you, they’ll be far more likely to “hear” what you’re asking them to do in the first place.

Please, please, recognize your power as a team leader. Side note: A leader is so much more than a person in authority.

If you absolutely can’t stop yourself from doing these things, then please stop working with children and go and work on yourself first. Breaking others down, especially children is only an indication of tremendous personal brokenness. Please recognize the need for your own healing first.

And to those phenomenal coaches, and there are so many of you, who lead by example, who teach mightily through encouragement, who understand that patience is powerful, who know that the most effective motivator in any situation is a relationship, on behalf of children and teens everywhere, thank you for the incredible difference that you are making.

“A good coach can change a game. A great coach can change a life.” (John Woodent)

- Naomi Holdt
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⁣🎥 Watch the replay of my interview - Sports Coaching: The Human Factor - with Sporting Legend Eugene Eloff and Pieter Louw, an ex-SA rugby player here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mi2GiLSH4kY⁣⁣
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Christmas and end of year Party 🎈

Fridays are fun days for the Aftercare Children - outdoors or indoors there is lots of fun to be had 😁💝

This week we started our second term for the Playschool Children and although we sadly said goodby to two children who have relocated we welcome little ‘Ocean’ to the family .❤️

Benefits of Scooters

BALANCE AND DIRECTION
Scooters are powered first by a kick but directed using balance. Scooters can help improve coordination with use at any age, but particularly when kids are young and learning how to balance using their weight.

GROSS AND FINE MOTOR SKILLS
Developing gross and fine motor skills enables kids to become more independent while opening doors to exploration, creativity, and learning.

Scooter help develop both sets of motor skills kids need in everyday life. Scooters must be transported to a place of play and maneuvered properly, and can even be used as a centerpiece for imaginary play… or barreling down a grass hill.

PRE-READING SKILLS
The above benefits are also essential pre-reading skills for very young kids. Our books are printed from left to right so experts believe its important for new readers to be familiar with the concept of direction at an early age. Motor skills are essential for a number of other reasons. Kids not only need to hold the books and flip pages, but a good pencil grip later enables them to write words down in order to remember them better. They’ll hone motor skills to brush teeth, type and a number of other things throughout their lives.

CONFIDENCE
It usually doesn’t take long for kids to master riding a kick scooter. When they do, the confidence knowing they can handle it can potentially make them eager to tackle other skills.

SAFETY
Through riding scooters, kids can understand a bit more about the importance of protecting their bodies and consequences of not doing so.

FUN
Seriously, kids love the freedom and ease that riding a scooter provides. The bottom line is that kick scooters are fun and also let them ride when walking might be a burden.

One of the favorite things for our PitterPatter Children is to be told fetch the bikes - the run with glee and have all got a favorite scooter and off we go to play on the driveway.

Fun Times !!!