Sports are a great way to get your children into an activity that will help them lead a healthy lifestyle. Introducing them to a sport like football is a no brainer. It’s fun, active, and the most popular sport in the world! Plus, having your toddler attend football sessions can help them to really begin developing their motor, balance, and coordination abilities. Many people ask – how do I introduce a toddler to football? Let’s explore that in this blog!
One of the best things about football has to be it’s simplicity. The fact that you need so little is what makes it incredibly appealing to most. An open area and a ball – et voila! It’s a great way just to keep your kids occupied and it’s rather easy to introduce them to a sport like football whether they already have an interest or not.
Introducing A Toddler To Football
Give Them A Ball
Put a ball at the feet of a toddler, chances are they’ll kick it. And for many, that’s the starting point. Having fun just kicking around a ball is what it’s all about for a toddler. However, if you get them a ball that’s bigger than them, they’re not going to have fun playing with it. In fact, they’ll probably hardly move it at all which isn’t what you want. Smaller balls are easier to control and easier to kick so they won’t feel disheartened like they would with a bigger ball.
Once they have their own ball and a space to play around in, you’ll probably find that they could spend a lot of time just kicking the ball around. They keep active all on their own.
These days, there are so many different colours and designs for footballs. No doubt your toddler will be even happier to kick around and play with a ball in their favourite colour #TeamOrange!
Play With Them
Children learn mostly through watching others which means you might have to lead by example. Kicking a ball is just that, it’s not actually football. So take the lead and get your family and friends involved in a small, friendly game. Your child will more than likely also want to get involved after seeing everyone else kicking the ball and having fun.
It’s up to you whether you want to go all out and create a mini pitch in your garden or if you just play with a ball and a goal post. You don’t even need teams, really. The main goal (unintended football pun!) of this is to emphasise that kicking the ball into the goal is a positive thing. If your toddler sees everyone cheering every time this happens, they’ll be able to pick up on it themselves.
Encourage Involvement in Watching Football
By playing them, you’ve just begun to show them what a game looks like very basically. But encouraging them to get involved in watching football will help them get an idea of what a real match looks like – complete with teams and kits and an audience. Don’t try and explain all the technical jargon to them, it will most likely fly over their heads. Wait it out, answer whatever questions they have and maybe ask them their opinion and leave it at that.
Also don’t expect them to pay attention to a 90-minute match, children often have the shortest attention spans. Instead you can take them to see bits of local games that are played in the community or at schools. If they have a sibling on the school football team… Well, that couldn’t be more ideal.
Perhaps you could take them to an official match where they can experience the environment of competitive football.
Don’t Be Overly Serious
Reward your children when they score a goal but don’t make them feel pressured by keeping a score count. Especially not if they’re playing with other or older kids who might have better aim and control of the ball. Keep the game light-hearted and fun. If they stop finding it fun, it’ll lose its spark and they won’t want to play it again any time soon.
Reward them when they score but also recognise their effort the times they don’t. Positive reinforcement is a good strategy here – the reward doesn’t have to be over the top. As simple as a piece of fruit or clapping after they’ve scored a goal.
Introduce A Toddler To Football At Home
When it comes to a sport like football, it can be easy for your family and friends to get involved and friendly games can turn competitive quickly. When your toddler is playing with the ball, however, it’s important that if someone plays with them, it’s to the same level of the child. Intimidating them by tackling or taking possession of the ball won’t help them. Mainly because the ball keeps getting taken from them but also because they’ll end up anticipating involvement rather than just focusing on kicking.
Football may be a contact sport but for a toddler it’s not. It’s a little fun activity for them to do when they’re in the garden or at the park. Time on the ball is the best type of practice they can get. They’ll learn to balance better, improve their coordination, control the ball easier.
Fun, Fun, Fun!
Everything children do should have an element of fun in it. Otherwise it becomes hard to hold their attention or to get them into a routine.
Making football as fun as possible is the goal to have a positive lasting impression.
At Kixx, that’s exactly what we aim to do – deliver high-energy, fun, and age-appropriate lessons to kids aged 18 months to 10 years. Every single one of our classes has been carefully designed by our Early Years experts, training partners, and coaches.
Our football classes for kids nurture a safe, comfortable environment where we encourage kids to work as a team and improve their social skills by making friends.
Introduce your toddler to football with our toddler-parent football sessions!
How To Introduce To Football With Kixx Football Academy
We want to have a positive impact on a child’s life at every opportunity.
Find your nearest academy; we’re located throughout the country! If you want to know more about children’s football, simply reach out to us. You can call us on 01302 618080. Alternatively, you can send an inbox to our mail address, admin@kixx.org.uk.
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