Soccer, or football, is the most well-known and followed sport globally, for a good reason. This article will give you drills and reasons “Soccer drills with the kids” in the backyard is awesome. If you can acquire a handgrip of a ball and a few players, you’ve got yourself a game. But let’s be honest, most of these pick-up games aren’t taking place on well-polished pitches under lustrous stadium lights. And why should they, when many of us have an entirely suitable field in our backyard?
Your backyard is the super place for your kids and your family to get their hands on something special, like soccer and develop skills. The sport of soccer is the perfect match for fun and fitness. Not only soccer, but all the backyard activities help enhance the well-being and healthy development of all the family members.
Wait for a second; is there any better sensation than kicking the ball around with family- not a concern in the world, just relishing the game for the thrill of it? Playing soccer with the family in the backyard isn’t just fun. For the kids particularly, soccer provides a chance to stay healthy, develop teamwork skills and even put lessons in class for meaningful practice. And it’s just the start.
Read on as we search for some of the greatest perks and privileges of backyard soccer and playing together as a family with the kids.
The shudder of learning… over and over again
There’s always something so gratifying about learning something fresh—a song, a skill, or, in this example, a sport that’s able to redeem a lifetime of rememberings. While assisting your child in learning the game of soccer in your backyard, you get to relish the thrill of learning once again.
There’s a cause why a passion for soccer inclines to run through families, after all. More than “just” a leisure pursuit, soccer is something you can hand down, like a precious family tradition. Taking your child out to the backyard field for the first time offers the whole family a chance to rekindle the sport with refreshing eyes.
A healthy pastime, that’s all.
Wholesome health and cherishing fitness can be the biggest perks of playing soccer. The Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health (RCPCH) endorses kids’ exercise for an hour every day, and this sport offers an exceptional workout—the leg strength that increases with each kick and pass, even the upper-body benefits of each throw-in. This sport allows you to speed up your child’s mental and physical development.
The finest part of it all? When you’re getting involved in this game as a kid, none of this sounds like a “workout or drill.” It’s just a sensational play… pure pleasure! Participating in a local youth soccer competition makes your child play regularly. Still, even outside of the calendar year, you can foregather and enjoy the sport as a family—play in the backyard or the park.
Health-wise, soccer also comes with the patent fringe benefits of confidence, self-esteem, and other important aspects of mental health.
Living and Growing Better Together
Catering the happiness of daily life is the best thing to experience. Playing soccer in your backyard with your family offers you to live and grow better together. Your child can experience the charisma of will and skill with you right in the backyard. This will engrave the core values of teamwork and comradeship in your child. Teamwork is one of the great things about soccer. For many kids, it’s one of the first places where they genuinely learn the core values of pulling together toward a common ambition—literally—which is an experience they’ll remember until doomsday.
Even apart from the formal competition, there’s a lot to be said about playing soccer as a family altogether. It’s easy to be frenzied in our daily lives, but there’s no such spot for screens, texts, and emails in the centre of the soccer pitch! You can share your past soccer experiences with your kids so that they might get the proper taste of this beautiful game. Playing, enjoying, and growing together in the most beautiful place in your home’s backyard is the best and mesmerizing experience ever.
Over and Above the Class
Nowadays, we’re experiencing gradually that there is not always a clear line between “athletics” and “academics.” Soccer is an outstanding example of this. For most of the academic lessons kids are acquiring in school, the sport provides a path for them to contextualize them in the real world — what better way to disassemble the simple knowledge of fractions, for instance, than by demonstrating it with the central line and the two halves of the field?
On a similar outlook, shots at the goal can impart a great starting point for better insight into geometric angles. These associations and flashy ‘ahas’ are just some of the fun ways soccer builds real and meaningful connections with academics.
The Drill Scenario: Practice Makes Permanent
Soccer might already engage your kid, or you might want to introduce this dynamic game to them. Like all sports, soccer requires practice, but unlike many other sports, soccer doesn’t need any special equipment or gear, nor do you have to go to a place with special facilities to practice. You can almost do anything in a big field in soccer, or you can head out to your backyard.
Here are some basic soccer drills which you can carry out with your kids in your backyard. But before heading up to the field, you don’t have to put pressure on your kid to do well and be that type of soccer “mentor or coach”. Motivate your child while taking part in the training, when you can, to have fun together. Always remember that practise makes permanent.
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Passing Drill:
- You can begin with passing the ball around. Try to pass the ball from the inside of your foot. Slowing down the ball to pass it isn’t always necessary. Instead, try to concentrate on passing a moving ball. The purpose of passing a moving ball is that this is how it will be during an actual game. Make sure you are tuning up to be able to pass with both feet.
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Shooting & Dribbling Drill:
- It would help if you also gave your child a sneak peek at shooting and dribbling. You can train your kid to practice free kicks by picking up some untapped Items such as a bucket, cones, even stands that may be used as hurdles. Ask your child to take free kicks that will enhance his free-kick style. You could also demonstrate to your kid how to dribble the soccer ball around different objects. This will help young fellas to learn how to keep close control of the ball.
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Penalty Shots:
- You wouldn’t want to use an outer wall of your house or a garage door as a substitute goal to practice penalty shots. That can cause damage to the outside of your house, not to mention terribly noisy for you and your neighbours too. But you can buy a real goal post, easy to install in your backyard. Many sports outlets provide a selection of goal dimensions to accommodate not just your child’s age and height, as well as the scale of your backyard. When you have a goal in place, kids can easily practise their penalty shots and various kicks like a scissor or back kick. Of course, if your child’s position is the goalie, an actual goal post will go a long way to training.
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Juggling:
- Juggling takes the ball up in the air with your foot, not touching the ball on the ground, and is easily practised in the backyard. If your kid can juggle the ball easily in the backyard, they will control the ball much better during an actual match. Controlling the ball in the air provides better control when the ball is on the field. You can find plenty of online videos showing different techniques and workout exercises for juggling and other soccer skills. Better control of the ball means more chances to excel in this game.
Mastering the Play: Skill Challenge
Besides these basic soccer drills, there are also many exotic skills that you can opt for your kids. According to Irish football legend Roy Keane, specificity, time, enjoyment, and accessibility are the four key factors for youth soccer development. Considering all these key factors, certain skill challenges for kids would improve their ball mastery, competence, and confidence with the soccer ball at their feet. This skill challenge is known as the 10-2-1 Challenge.
The concept of this challenge is simple: 10 skills, 2×2 meter square, and 1 minute to perform each skill. The main purpose of this skill challenge is to practise each skill as many times as possible with the right technique and keeping the ball within the 2×2 square meter area.
The 2×2 square meter area can be marked with cones or bricks. Practising these skills is fun and makes your kid more proficient over ball control. Your backyard is an ideal place to perform these skills with your family. You can then record the score of your kids for each skill and do them again and again to improve their scores. You can also organize a healthy soccer skill challenge competition among the kids on your backyard soccer field. This will surely bring confidence in the young fellas.
So let’s have a look at each skill:
- Fast Feet
- Triangles
- Drag-Push
- Inside-Outside
- Fast-Feet (Step Over)
- Double Taps
- Body Triangles
- Squeeze and Push
- Drag Stop
- Juggles
Here is a link to a soccer training video where you and your kids can watch the skill tutorials demonstrated by a professional soccer player. All of the above-mentioned skills are taught in this video. So do have a look at it.
To Conclude
Remember one most important thing, warm-up before starting the drill session and cool down after the drill session is necessary. Because these aspects of any sport are of great importance, these exercises enhance the agility, physical flamboyancy, and robustness of the player on the field.
And after all, with a lot of training and dedication, your child could become a future soccer superstar. It’s imperative that you have to be as passionate and zealous as your child about the game of soccer and the training sessions and do your best to hone your child’s soccer skills.
Train your kids that individual training is just as important to improve their play as team training, if not more. So please take advantage of your backyard, crave it into a soccer field, and begin to train your kids and enjoy with your family.
If you’d like to learn more about another potential backyard activity, such as Rugby or Cricket, click on their names to learn more.
I never knew football was such an addiction until I met my husband.. At first I thought he was enjoying a specific tournament and soon it will be over. But then another tournament came along, and another.. and then I realized it will never end.. (was slightly shocked by that 🙂
But the years went by and the children came along and I must admit – football is a great way to pass an afternoon with them. So much laughter!
The simple soccer ball is so versatile, 1shaula. I can understand your husbands’ passion or as you put it addiction it’s his form of excitement we get that here in New Zealand with rugby and many other sports.
So glad you have seen the enjoyment of your kids blossom with this super fun game more than just a game away to keep fit away to develop good relationships too.
Many thanks for reading
J W RIDDELL -THE FUN HUB
I have also got a same football fanatic in my home as shaula’s husband, my brother. He is so mad about this game. After high school, he wanted to become a sports coach but our parents insisted him to pursue computer engineering as his future career. Due to parents so called desire he got admission in country’s one of the top universities and studied just 2 semester there. After an year, he left his engineering field and followed his passion and got admission in abroad. He faced so much criticism initially but he remained firm and put all his trust in his abilities and passion. Now he has opened his own football academy and coaching at grass root level. Just following his passion and putting his energy in the right thing.
Recently, he has prepared a soccer field in his new house’s backyard and doing the same things you have mentioned in this article.
I liked this soccer piece. Because it has everything; the passion, the fun n excitement, and hunger of moving forward.
Hats off to you!
I think of what I loved, Nabeela, when I was a kid, kicking a soccer ball. To me Playing with your relatives in the backyard is not just fun football, it gives you the ability to remain healthy and to cultivate the teamwork that families need. Your anecdote about your brother and his journey is not only compelling but also deeply motivating; embracing your ambition is the best way to make a living and create your own universe. Time is fleeing away to be a football star in your country, but at the same time, you can still learn and have fun with your family, even get a job at your local football club doing something that gets you close to your passion. So happy you enjoyed this article, Nabeela.
Many Thanks
J W RIDDELL -THE FUN HUB