This picture illustrates various tasks related to the action area «Building relationships and strengthening the team». In every scene, you as a Y+S leader can support and strengthen the children's and adolescent's personality with the right action. Click on all the scenes.
Despite being better, Anna is usually beaten by her opponents during competitions. She always performs very well in training, but her nerves get the better of her during a competition.
During trainings, teach Anna methods on how to deal with nervousness and build up self-confidence. Encourage her to adopt a confident, upright posture.
To what extent do you experience such or similar situations in your Y+S activity? How do you help the children and adolescents to overcome their nervousness?
Rilana is practicing handstands while Lisa is watching. Rilana keeps falling over backwards and doesn’t really understand why. She doesn’t feel like practicing any more.
Talk to her about perception of movement. How did Rilana experience her handstand and how does Lisa, as an observer, describe her impression? Do their perceptions coincide?
To what extent do you experience such or similar situations in your Y+S activity? How do you encourage children and adolescents to perceive movement?
Samira takes on a lot of responsibility; she is team captain, acts as a role model and is able to inspire others to perform at their best. In an actual game, however, she suddenly fails to accomplish anything..
Take a quiet moment to talk to her about what happened and show her ways to better deal with pressure (e.g. relaxation and breathing techniques).
To what extent do you experience such or similar situations in your Y+S activity? How do you train your children and adolescents to deal with high-pressure situations?
There is a large performance gap in your team. However, all players should receive regular and evenly distributed activity time. Marco, the best player in your team, is not at all happy with this.
Explain to your team why you want everyone to have the same amount of activity time. Mutually agree upon values and rules, put them in writing and let everyone sign them.
To what extent do you experience such or similar situations in your Y+S activity? How do you encourage children and adolescents to deal with conflicts in a constructive manner?
There is often a lot of agitation in the changing room: before today’s training, someone hid Julia’s sportswear in the bin. Julia is beside herself with anger and reacts aggressively.
Discuss the situation with the children and use specific questions to animate them to change their perspective (e.g. «Why do you think Julia is reacting in such an aggressive manner?»). Who assumes responsibility and ensures respectful treatment in the changing room?
To what extent do you experience such or similar situations in your Y+S activity? How do you handle conflicts in the changing room?
Every week you train with your group on the sports field. Lately, you often find empty bottles and all sorts of other litter lying around.
Make participants aware of a respectful treatment towards the environment. Turn the cool down into a «plogging» by combining your cool down exercises with picking up litter off the ground.
To what extent do you experience such or similar situations in your Y+S activity? How do you encourage respectful treatment towards nature?
Lukas is new to the club. He doesn’t know anyone in the group yet and the training procedures are still new to him. Fortunately, Lea takes him under her wing and shows him what to do.
Make sure that this practice becomes a fixed ritual: decide who would make a good buddy pairing. Buddies take care of the newcomers, explain the most important procedures, and introduce them to the other group members.
To what extent do you experience such or similar situations in your Y+S activity? How do you help new children and adolescents find their way in the club?
There are some lone wolves on your team who feel like they can win a game on their own. When playing ball games, you notice that weaker players rarely get the ball.
Discuss your observations with the players and the team. Make sure to incorporate more activities that force lone wolves to collaborate with their team.
To what extent do you experience such or similar situations in your Y+S activity? How do you promote the children’s and adolescents’ team spirit?
Your team often doesn’t perform well at the start of a competition. It seems like everyone’s thoughts are elsewhere and the team hasn’t really connected yet.
Promote team spirit! Together with your group, create a greeting ritual and a battle cry. Guide the group warm-up and make sure everyone is well prepared.
To what extent do you experience such or similar situations in your Y+S activity? On the day of the competition, how do you make sure that the team’s concentration is at its best right from the start?
Once again, Nick arrives five minutes late and pretends not to notice. He does not feel guilty about it for he thinks that it doesn’t matter anyway.
Confront Nick about his tardiness and ask him why he was late. Mutually agree upon clear rules as well as the consequences he needs to face if he does not adhere to them.
To what extent do you experience such or similar situations in your Y+S activity? How do you react if the children and adolescents arrive late on a regular basis?
Today, nothing is going right for Sven. He talks himself down, is audibly annoyed and disturbs the others.
Address the consequences of negative self-talk (e.g. «This is far too difficult. I can’t do it!») and show him how he can reformulate it in a positive manner.
To what extent do you experience such or similar situations in your Y+S activity? How do you encourage self-regulation in children and adolescents?
Sabrina’s team has recently started to be active on social media. After training, she discovers a photo showing her in an unfavourable pose on their Instagram page.
Together with your team, lay down clear rules for dealing with social media (e.g. before publishing a picture, make sure to get consent from everyone).
To what extent do you experience such or similar situations in your Y+S activity? How do you tackle the issue of social media with children and adolescents?
The participants of your course have reached an age in which they are increasingly confronted with tobacco and alcohol.
Talk to your youngsters about addictive substances and register your group for «cool and clean». Together with your group of adolescents, agree to adhere to the six commitments of the program.
To what extent do you experience such or similar situations in your Y+S activity? How do you tackle the issue of addictive substances with children and adolescents?
You notice that some participants only drink soda and eat unhealthy snacks during their breaks in trainings and competitions.
Make your participants aware of athlete-friendly food and drinks and demonstrate the advantages of a healthy diet. Discuss this topic with their parents as well.
To what extent do you experience such or similar situations in your Y+S activity? How do you encourage children and adolescents to maintain a healthy diet?
Every training session begins with a guided warm-up to prepare the participants physically and mentally for the sporting activity.
Act as a role model and encourage a healthy and responsible treatment of the body. Demonstrate why a warm-up is an important part of sport.
To what extent do you experience such or similar situations in your Y+S activity? How do you strengthen healthy treatment of the body?
It’s always the same: nobody ever wants to team up with Tom. The other children laugh at him and insult him. The situation is draining Tom’s self-esteem.
Watch closely and react when a participant is excluded or bullied. Divide the children into groups, allow Tom to experience a sense of achievement and thus to strengthen his self-esteem.
To what extent do you experience such or similar situations in your Y+S activity? How do you react to signs of bullying and exclusion?
Jessica is afraid of heights. Well secured and encouraged by you, she manages, for the first time, to climb over four meters on the wall; she is visibly proud of herself.
Give your participants time, to approach challenges gradually and gather their courage. Encourage them, to consciously focus on themselves and to overcome obstacles, in order to make progress.
To what extent do you experience such or similar situations in your Y+S activity? How do you help the children and adolescents to overcome their fear?
During their break, Larissa and Andri depart to complete an obstacle course by themselves and become more and more rambunctious. They chase each other and try to push each other down.
Courage is good for you! Create a physical environment that is challenging and stimulating so that the children can live out their enthusiasm. In good time in advance, remind everyone to respect the safety rules previously agreed upon.
To what extent do you experience such or similar situations in your Y+S activity? How do you incorporate challenging and stimulating movement tasks into your training?
In agreement with you, a walking-impaired child will participate in today’s training session. The child has already heard lots of good things about the club and would like to take part in a trial training.
Discuss the situation with your group and, when planning the session, make sure that everyone gets to contribute their individual strengths and express their needs. See diversity as an opportunity.
To what extent do you experience such or similar situations in your Y+S activity? How do you live diversity with the children and adolescents?
Philipp is the youngest in your group. He doesn't trust himself too much and is scared, that the others laugh at him.
Set clever tasks, that challenge Philipp and enable him to experience real success. Praise him and build his self-esteem.
To what extent do you experience such or similar situations in your Y+S activity? How do you strengthen the self-worth of children and young people?
Jasmin is the oldest and most experienced player on the team. She likes to take on additional tasks and is always glad to lend a hand.
Assign Jasmin responsibility. As captain, she is allowed to guide the warm-up and take care of the team jerseys. She takes pride in her new tasks and becomes a role model for others.
To what extent do you experience such or similar situations in your Y+S activity? How do you assign responsibility and tasks to the children and adolescents?
In the final and emotional moments of a game, Lukas manages to achieve victory. His opponent Jim is visibly frustrated. Despite his frustration, he swaps his jersey with Lukas after the game and thus proves to be a good sport.
Use this positive example to address values such as respect and fair play. In doing so, encourage respectful and fair interaction within and outside the team.
To what extent do you experience such or similar situations in your Y+S activity? How do you encourage respectful and fair interaction among the children and adolescents?
Provide guidance on deep breathing or even progressive muscle relaxation.
Instruct the participants to communicate at a moderate volume.
