Give the coach, before the first training session, what they need to never leave your child with ADD out of the group
A card given to the coach before the first training session, and instructions change shape without your child with ADD having to ask for special attention in front of the rest of the group. He stays in the team, with cues that suit him, right from the first session.
This case concerns a 9-year-old child with ADD without marked hyperactivity, who joins a sports club. You want the coach to understand why certain instructions get lost along the way, rather than jumping to the conclusion of a deliberate lack of attention.
The moment that matters
"You never listen to anything." The remark lands during Matteo's very first handball training session, at 9 years old, after he has just gone to the wrong side of the pitch for the second time. The coach had given the instruction only once, though, standing in the middle of the group: two instructions in a row, followed by a gesture to reproduce. Matteo carried out the first part, lost the second one along the way. For a coach who is just getting to know the team, the temptation is to send him back into line one more time.
Except that his mother had given, before the first session, a card with the link to his profile. The coach reads it that same evening, before the next training session. He learns that Matteo has ADD, that instructions given in a chain get lost along the way, and that a single instruction at a time, repeated if needed, changes everything in how well he can carry it out.
At the next session, the coach breaks his explanations down into one step, then another, and checks with a glance that Matteo has followed before moving on. What did not happen: the teammate's remark repeated at every failed exercise, the feeling of being left out of the team game, and the question, at the end of the session, of whether to keep playing sport or give up.
- You write it
- The QR is in place
- The reader scans
- Understood, without explaining again
Where to place the QR for this case
In a club, the coach sometimes changes from one season to the next, or from one course to another. The right time to pass on the information is before the first session, not after several failed exercises.
- Card given to the coach at the time of club registration, so it is available before the first session.
- Label on the sports bag or water bottle, printed from an A4 sheet of labels (standard template), that any adult supervising that day can check.
- Link passed to the club through the office, so it follows the child even if the coach changes during the season.
- Card slipped into the club's tracking booklet, if the association keeps one for each member.
The rule here: the information follows the child from one season to the next and from one club to another, not just the first coach met at the very start.
Pre-written text templates
Three templates to adjust to your situation. They cover what a coach reads first: what ADD is on a sports field, what helps get an instruction across, and what breaks the team's dynamic. Starting points, not sentences to copy word for word.
For the "About me" section
"My name is [first name], I am [age] years old. I have ADD: when several instructions arrive at once, I lose part of them along the way, even though I really want to do well. That doesn't mean I'm not listening, just that my attention needs a shorter frame."
For the "How to help" section
"You can: give one instruction at a time, check with a glance that I have followed before moving on, give me a clear position or role in the exercise, and repeat an instruction without getting annoyed if it got lost along the way."
For the "What to avoid" section
"To avoid: stringing several instructions together in the same sentence, pulling me out of the exercise after a single slip, letting other children comment on my mistakes in front of the whole group, or jumping to the conclusion that I'm not making an effort to follow."
Conditions concerned by this case
This case relates to ADHD, in its form where attention becomes scattered without marked motor restlessness. On a sports field, a long or chained instruction gets lost more easily than a short, single one, without this reflecting a lack of involvement. The linked page details how this works and the supports that help both at school and in extracurricular activities.
Similar cases
Other activities supervised by an adult outside the family, sports club or association, where an instruction adapted from the very first session keeps a child with ADD from quietly disengaging from the group.
The teacher understands, right when marking, why the handwriting is difficult, without the child having to ask out loud for leniency.
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