Brett Klika is a leading authority on youth development and how  coaches can assist in this maturation process.  He worked for  world-renowned trainer Todd Durkin for several years, heading up his  youth development program.  Eventually, Brett co-created a program  called SPIDERfit Kids that teaches coaches, trainers and educators the  intricacies of helping young people become more physically literate.

Brett breaks this process down into 9 distinct segments:

Body Awareness:  Understanding the parts of the body and various ways they can move.

Directional Awareness: The ability to understand the  directions of the body (right, left, up, down, etc.) and to be able to  move in all planes of motion.

Spatial Awareness:  A concept of how much space the body occupies in relation to the surrounding environment.

Temporal Awareness:  The sense of timing, rhythm, and precision.

Vestibular Awareness:  An internal sense of the head and body’s position in relation to gravity.

Proprioceptive Awareness: The ability to interpret  the internal sense of where the body and specific joints are in space  and in relation to each other, and how much force/velocity they are  exerting.

Tactile Awareness: The ability to appropriately respond to touch, in addition to differentiation of objects by size, texture, and shape.

Visual Awareness:  The ability to visually focus, track, and take in broad fields of view.

Auditory Awareness: The ability to accurately interpret and respond to sound.

If you work with children, have children or think you might be  interested in working with young people at some point, I think you’re  going to love listening to Brett Klika on this episode of The Impact  Show.

You may also want to check out the awesome program SPIDERfit Kids that  Brett Klika created for coaches and trainers.  This incredibly-thorough  program walks you step-by-step, how to create and organize  developmentally-appropriate programs for young kids.