Coaching Kids Under the Age of 10

Coaching young kids under the age of 10 is a huge responsibility and one that should be taken seriously.  There are a lot of decisions that need to be made.  You need to teach them fundamentals at that age but how do you go about doing it?  How fast should you go?  How do you keep them interested?  Do you toss in coordination drills as well?  How often do you have them play a game?  Should those games be played 5 a side or with less players.  How about defense?  Do you teach them man to man principles from a young age and have them build on that or do you teach them a zone?
Finally what about offense?  Do you teach them a structured offense or do you teach them about floor balance and pass and move basketball?  This post is aimed to addressing all of these questions.


Fundamentals
Teaching kids the fundamentals is the most important responsibility a coach at the youth level has.  At this point in their development it is important that they know how to dribble, pass, catch, shoot, make a layup, and play defense.  Without an understanding of the basics it makes no sense to have the kids go out and play the game.

With this in mind, how do you go about teaching the fundamentals to kids that are extremely young and have an attention span that is almost non existent.  I think there are 4 things that need to be incorporated in practices in order to teach kids the fundamentals.

1. Keep things simple and build on them.  If your going to teach them how to shoot have them start with their follow thru (without a ball), then have them set up with the proper base and with the hands set up as if they are getting the ball in the shooting pocket.  Once this has been taught have them shoot to a wall.  At this point they should be hungry to shoot the ball at a rim.  Let them do so.  
2. Keep correcting them but always keep it positive.  Have them try to correct themselves before you do anything.  Use the 3 layer approach of compliment, criticize, then compliment again.  Keep the corrections interactive.
3. Keep them in small groups.  By having them in groups of 3-5 you can keep things interactive and get everyone involved.  By keeping them involved you keep them interested.
4. Keep mixing things up.  Doing the same things over and over in practice gets boring.  Mix it up.  Work on shooting one day then work on dribbling, or passing or defense or layups.  Try to end practice with a game of some sort depending on their skill level.

Coordination
Teaching kids coordination is very important.  At 5-7 years old their motor skills are still developing.  The way to teach kids coordination is to have them run in a fashion that mimics the basic movements in a game.  Some of the ways to do this are as follows:

1. Line them up and have them do it.  Line them up at the baseline and have them run forwards, backwards, slide, front to back to front, skipping, pivots, jump stops, one legged jumps, 2 legged jumps, etc.
2. Create fun games.  Have them play tag, sharks and minnows, relay races, obstacle courses, etc.

Defense
The best thing to do as a coach is to teach them how to play man to man from a young age.  This helps in numerous ways.

1. It teaches them defensive principles and helps reinforce them in the head.
2. It helps with coordination.
3. It helps to show them how to help each other and how teamwork helps the team.
4. It forces your team to practice against a man to man which will help the offense learn how to screen for each other, balance the floor, and break down a man and a defense.

Offense
Motion is the key to offense at all ages but especially at a young age.  You don't want kids to be thinking about where they need to be on the floor.  Instead teach them a few basic principles that will help them:

1. Keep the floor balanced.  Make sure that the offensive weakside is always occupied.  This keeps the defense occupied.
2. Support your teammates.  Make sure that a teammate with the ball has at least 2 options to pass to when he/she has the ball.  This requires movement and making sure that there is always someone both on the left and the right side of the ball.
3. Learn how to screen for each other both on the ball and away from the ball. 

Scrimmage
The more I think about this the more I believe that it is better for players to be scrimmaging 3v3 at the beginning of the year and then to slowly progress to 5v5 as the season progresses.  The reason 3v3 is beneficial is because it is easier to keep everyone involved both offensively and defensively and allows for more touches by everyone.  Offensively players are forced to move and support each other while defensively your man to man principles of stay in front of your man, deny the wings, and help each other can all be emphasized.

The one thing to remember during scrimmages is to stay positive.  Yes be critical when they make a mistake but keep it positive (3 layer approach).  Also, be selective on what you decide to criticize your players on.   Don't be so quick to criticize a missed shot or layup unless it is a bad shot which needs correcting.

Games
As you progress through the season, you will want to set up games against other teams to keep things interesting for your players but always stress the basics that you have taught them in practice in a positive fashion.  Remember:

1. It's not about the wins and losses at this level but rather the teaching moments so don't worry about the wins.  
2. Don't bring a team with more than 10 players to it.  It isn't fair to anyone when you can only play 5 kids at a time.  Determine at practice which of your kids are ready for this step beforehand.  If there is more than 10 then try to see if you can split the squad and bring 2 teams.  This will require that the other team has 2 teams also or that they are willing to play 2 games.
3. Play everyone you bring to the game as equal amount of time as possible.
4. Always keep it positive.
5. Uniforms is something that kids go crazy about so add this incentive to practice by telling them you will get a uniform if you practice hard.

In conclusion, expose your kids to a lot of different things in practice to keep things interesting but use a building block approach by starting basic and building from there.  Keep things fun and moving forward and the kids will improve.