I have a team of 7 boys, all 7 years old. They are usually an attentive team, but when they stray and don't pay attention I have them run a lap around the gym.

This is proving to be an ineffective deterrent to horsesplay, and sometime when I send someone on a lap another boy will ask if he can run a lap too. I was wondering if anybody has had success in another type of discipline for this age group.

I'm thinking of just having them sit on the bench for 3 minutes or something in the future. Ideas?

As I am reading this I have a smile on my face... they are 7 years old and have the attention span of a waterbug

I might suggest that you keep your time segments short and to the point.... do some things that are fun and competitive.

At this age it has to be all about FUN - teaching some fundamentals and a little bit about the game.

Good luck and God Bless you for working with this age group.

Yep. Fun drills and keeping them moving helps a lot. If you have fast paced and active drills it helps because they don't have time to mess around.

Here's an example of a fast paced drill I just wrote about today.
http://jeffhaefner.com/coach/new-favorite-drill-for-our-3rd-grade-team-fun-and-improves-passing/

With that said, I emphasize listening and focus on day 1. I have three things...

1) Whenever a coach is talking, eyes on coach and listen carefully.
2) Hustle.
3) Don't worry about mistakes.

At the beginning of the year I have them repeat. Then I do a little trick to let them know I am serious about listening. I tell them to run down and back on the whistle. Then I say "Go". They all of course run. Then I have them do 5 push ups and ask them what is the first rule? "Whenever a coach is talking, eyes on coach and listen carefully."

I repeat a few times until they figure out I'm not blowing a whistle.

Then in each practice we re-emphasize the importance of listening. We usually do push ups but you can have the same problem with that. Some of the girls, including my daughter like push ups. And they'll do them when they don't have to.

But we have a good group of kids and with reminders they usually stay in line.

At clinics I've had some pretty naughty kids and I just sat them in the corner. They didn't like that too much especially when we were doing something fun.

I think constant emphasis and you consistently disciplining is key. Kids will do whatever they think they can get away with and they will test their boundaries.

Many years ago... when I was doing my student teaching with 5th graders ... they were a little wild... they loved be because I was a male and younger than their teacher.

So --- I made up this list of things to do right before recess.... at the very top it said.... READ EVERY ITEM BEFORE ANSWERING.....

The last item said.... SIGN YOUR NAME AND TURN IN THE PAPER AND GO TO RECESS.

No one got it,.... this really smart kid was whizzing through the list and all of a sudden he looked up at me, smiled and shook his head..... he was the first one out to recess.

They were a little ticked but I explained to them about paying attention and listening carefully to instructions.

After that one, They used to ask me, any tricks on this paper? LOL

Interesting timing on this question. Over the Thanksgiving holiday, I was going through some old boxes and ran across a DVD. Turned out to be a basketball DVD I'd put together for one of our 1st/2nd grade seasons. It had music, some interviews, clips from games, it was actually pretty cool. That was back in 2006.

One clip shows me during a time out with the 5 players surrounding me in a huddle. You see one kid get a burst of energy and start jogging in place. Another player decides it's time to do his patented break dance move and just breaks out of the group spinning on the floor. He was actually quite good.

There's another clip with all the kids squeaking their shoes on the court. It had snowed that day, so the moisture provided a great opportunity to see who could squeak the loudest. Kids were trying to give each other high fives during the game and missing, but lots of smiles all around. A great reminder that we kept it fun and let them be who they were, kids.

Regarding your question, I normally go the route of distraction first with the short fun/creative drills and keep the practice moving. The other thing you might try is letting them get some their energy out at the beginning of practice with a fast paced drill. Or switch to that drill if you see kids zoning out. I also used incentives when it came time to get them through a less exciting drill or concept. If you give me 4 min of good hard work in this next drill, we'll do that game that you guys love to do.

I like Jeff's ideas and you'll probably have to customize it to fit your group of kids. If kids are disrupting the practice due to their behavior that's one thing. If they're just spacing out once in a while, that's going to happen, imo. Especially at the 1st/2nd grade level.

Funny story Ken.

In extreme cases, where players are really causing a distraction I've gone to this method. As a TEAM, they will do some form of punishment, be it pushups, sprints, up/downs, burpees, whatever. While they are doing it, the TEAM must repeatedly say "Thank you, Tommy" (or whoever is at fault) while Tommy responds "You're welcome."

I've used this three times in my life and each time I never had a big issue the remainder of the season. A year later I saw a boy I coached and he said "hi coach. remember when I was goofing around and you made us do pushups and everybody had to thank me? That sucked!" He had a huge smile while saying this, giving me the impression he learned something that day.

Other times, when a player or two are goofing off and not paying attention, I'll just stop whatever it is we're doing and stare at them quietly. In turn, the rest of the team quickly begins staring at them too. Once they realize that it's gotten quiet and the action has stopped and all eyes are on them, they tend to straighten out the behavior a little.

Peer pressure can be a very useful tool to correct disruptive behavior.