We’re Not Coaching Mini Adults. We’re Coaching Developing Brains.

We're Not Coaching Mini Adults - We're Coaching Developing Brains
Have you ever finished a coaching session and thought:
“Why couldn't they stay focused?”
“I only gave them a few instructions, how did they forget them all?”
“Why did one ‘small’ mistake completely knock their confidence?”
Or perhaps you've watched a young rider perform brilliantly one week, only to seem distracted, overwhelmed or completely different the next.
As coaches, it's easy to interpret what we see.
They're not listening.
They're not concentrating.
They're not trying.
They're lacking confidence.
But what if we're sometimes looking at these behaviours through an adult lens?
What if the rider isn't giving you less, but simply isn't developmentally
ready to give you more?
A six-year-old and a sixteen-year-old may be learning the same riding skill, but they’re not coming to it with the same ability to process information, manage their attention or cope with what's happening around them.
And that raises some important questions for coaches.
How much information can we realistically expect a young rider to hold onto?
What happens when their attention is pulled in several directions at once?
Why can a rider who understands something perfectly well one day struggle to access it when they're nervous or under pressure?
And when a rider makes the same mistake repeatedly, are we correcting the behaviour or asking ourselves what might be getting in the way of the learning?
These aren't excuses for poor performance or difficult behaviour.
They're opportunities to understand our riders better.
Coaching isn't just about what we're teaching. It's about how the rider is able to receive it.
As coaches, we spend so much time thinking about what we want the rider to learn.
The exercise. The technique. The transition. The jump.
But perhaps we also need to ask:
Is this the right way for this rider to learn it?
A young rider's ability to concentrate, process information, make decisions, regulate emotions and learn from mistakes is developing over time.
So perhaps our coaching needs to develop with them.
Not by lowering expectations. Not by making everything easier.
But by becoming more developmentally appropriate.
That might mean changing the way we give an instruction.
It might mean asking a question rather than giving another explanation.
It might mean allowing a rider to experience something rather than talking them through every step.
And sometimes, it might simply mean recognising that what looks like “not listening” is actually a young brain doing exactly what we'd expect a developing brain to do.
So, are we coaching the rider in front of us?
Or are we coaching the rider we expect them to be?
That's the question at the heart of our upcoming webinar.
We'll explore what developing brains mean for young riders and importantly, what this means for us as coaches.
Because when we understand more about how young riders develop, we can start to ask better questions, make better coaching decisions and create environments where young riders aren't simply learning to ride...
They're learning how to learn.
And perhaps that's one of the most important things we can teach them.
Join us for the webinar:
We're Not Coaching Mini Adults – We're Coaching Developing Brains
See you there,
Amelia Collins
Sport Psychologist (SEPiT)