Are you looking for ways to improve your child’s core football skills? Perhaps they’re just starting out playing football and want to learn a few tips and tricks. Or maybe they’re beginning to get interested in learning different skills and techniques to help take them to the next level. Football is a technical game that requires many different skill sets. By learning these initial skills and continuing to practice your child will improve their skills and in turn their love for football.

Whatever the reason and their level, in this post, we will share with you 6 ways that will help improve your child’s core football skills. Use these skills correctly, with regular practice and the right attitude and your child should be able to greatly improve their ball dribbling skills over time.

Also, read: How to get your kids interested in sports.

What are core football skills?

Football is both a technical and tactical game. However, you cannot fully appreciate the tactical side if you haven’t yet conquered the technical aspect.

Moreover, football techniques are not confined to just one area of the game. In fact, all footballers are expected to possess a number of different skills in various areas of the game to reach a professional level.

So what skills does your child need to improve their core football skills?

1. Break it down into manageable easy steps

Kids can sometimes feel overwhelmed when they try something new. Especially if it appears difficult. They have far shorter attention spans than adults so it’s important to make it appear as if they’re doing something different regularly.

It helps keep them interested if you break down what you’re trying to teach them into manageable steps. They need to feel like they have achieved something at short intervals. And by breaking it down, they’ll get a little taste of accomplishment and this would be their incentive to keep working at it.

2. Practice without a ball

It may sound strange to suggest improving your kid’s core football skills without a ball. But this has huge benefits to their overall performance and physical ability.

Football is a physical sport, and it requires your body to work with and without the ball. Improving your kids’ physical technique and stability will greatly help them improve their game. If you think, when they’re on the pitch, most of the time they won’t actually have the balls, but, practising for those parts is often overlooked.

Most core skills require the following physical skills:

1. Speed
2. Change of pace
3. Agility
4. Balance
5. Flexibility
6. Power

You can practice these skills by also making them fun, think a game of tag or it to get them running around but also trying to get to someone else, therefore, using similar skills that they will when playing football.

3. Invest time and energy into helping them

We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again, practice makes perfect. The more you practice with your child the better they will get. A great way of doing this and ensuring you know what their level is investing in your own football franchise. A huge advantage of buying a football franchise is that you will get to spend more time analysing your kid’s core football skills on a weekly basis. A part-time franchise allows you to do this whilst continuing with your full-time job.

4. Repetition, Repetition, Repetition

It’s not just about practising different skills but also practising the same skill over and over again. Studies have shown that children need to practice something at least 75 times before they learn and remember it.

If you teach your kids one thing a couple of times then move onto the next, chances are, a few weeks down the line they will have already forgotten that first skill.

However, as we have previously mentioned – and we’re sure you already know kids attention spans are short so how do you make it interesting for them when repeating the same action?

Make repetition fun! Think of creative ways to teach the same skills to them. With younger children from around the age of 4 and 6, try to use their imagination. Pretend the floor is a burning lava and that they can only stay in certain areas to stay safe. In these certain areas, they have to practice a certain movement for 1 minute before the lava is temporarily released. Each area can have a different movement or you can choose them at random, this should keep the skill fun and exciting but you will also end up repeating the same movement quite a few times so hopefully they then remember it

5. Shooting practice

Depending on which position they plan on playing, shooting can be a huge part of playing football. But, you don’t always have to practice with a goal in place and doing this continuously can seem repetitive and lose its appeal, especially if you’re not playing against anyone.

Try using a target sheet instead and getting them to hit that or to kick a ball to a certain place in your garden (avoiding the flowers). Getting them to shoot but not using a goal can keep their attention span longer and improve their shooting skills in the meantime. Another advantage of owning a football franchise is that you can implement these techniques into your kids weekly practice and then bring those practices home.