THE TEENAGE BRAIN AND HOW YOU CAN COACH THEM

Tim Watson made his VFL/AFL debut at the tender age of 15 and 305 days - truly astonishing for how rough footy was those days and something we'd never think of happening these days even if it could happen.

As good as Whispy was he is definitely a part of the .01% of teenage footballers and we coach the other 99.9%.

With the initial release of the Footy Focus Online Program (click the link for more information and to sign up), here are some points I took from an article by Katrina Schwatrz.

I first read this article years ago but had the notes stored away in my files (I have many, many files) and it has a lot of valid points, many that I have included in the development of the Footy Focus Course.

• Plasticity is akin to the first 5 yrs of life
• Adult plasticity involves the rewiring of existing circuits, not the wholesale development of new ones or the elimination of others
• Adolescence is the last time in your life that you can change your brain dramatically
• Is exquisitely sensitive to experience which is why you can remember the most mundane things from when you were a teen compared to later in life
• With puberty happening earlier these days and young people taking on adult roles later in life, this window could be lengthening from ages 10 – 25
• Teens are risk takers because part of their brains are more plastic than others creating an imbalance
• The prefrontal cortex which controls planning, thinking ahead, risk/reward and logical reasoning is the most malleable during teen years
• Meanwhile sex hormones released during puberty affect brain functioning by adding more dopamine to the system
• Every time a teen feels good about something they get a dopamine hit hence why they seek out pleasurable experiences despite the risks
• Nothing will ever feel as good to you for the rest of your life as it did when you were a teen
• The imbalance between an aroused dopamine system and a still developing pre-frontal cortex which could inhibit some of the risky pleasure seeking behaviours, is why adolescence is such a dangerous time and while they are extremely healthy, mortality rates increase by 200 – 300% due to risky behaviour
• Reward pathways are activated when in a group of peers which is why they take extra risks in those times compared to being alone
• The prefrontal cortex is strengthened by challenge/novelty
• Provide them with work that is slightly more challening then their current level to keep them engaged
• Don’t confuse more challenging work with more volume of work
• A plastic brain is also more vulnerable to the wrong influences so you need to make sure that you only stress them at the right level at the right time
• Adolescence is the most likely time for mental illness to develop and substance abuse is 10 x worse if a student starts using before age 15 which again occurs from dopamie as they want more to get the same hit again
• Mindfulness can improve self-regulation which is the single most important quality to leading a successful life
• Statically the 4 things you need to do to lead a good life are to graduate high school, get married before having children, don’t get in trouble with the law and don’t be idle

The takeaways from this article in regards to youth football are:

1. In a single youth football team of all the same chronological age, the various levels of development from player to player can be huge so you need to be patient and not expect everyone to be at the same level at the same time - hell a single player will be at all various levels at diferent times so multiply that x 22!
2. What constitutes a sensitive experience will be also vary from player to player so a quick chat to find out why each player plays and what their expectations are can assist you in creating individual player outcomes that added together can develop great team outcomes as well.
3. Risk taking during games will happen so it's important to not get caught up in them as a coach and to create an environment where mistake swill happen and are actually encouraged because that's when learning takes place.
4. Dopamine hits come from instant gratification so that makes how you teach and have them learn footy critical because if you start at a level that's too hard and there is no success, you'll get no buy-in and motivation will decrease dramatically. By starting a spot that ensures immediate success straight away, they'll want to be successful as much as they can going forward to get that hit again so each step only needs to be slightly above the last one in initial learning stages.
5. Once some sustained success has been achieved then they'll now need training outcomes that are currently slightly out of their grasp so they are challenged with something new but also perceived as attainable in the short term. 
6. Mindfulness can improve self regulation which is the single most important quality to leading a successful life and is one of the driving themes through the entire Footy Focus Course which aims to give youth footballers the tools to do this.