Tutoring chess for the first time

Hey guys- recently when I was playing OTB in public, someone approached me and asked if I could tutor their kid in chess, I said I could teach them the basics. The issue comes in with her age, she's 9, and I'm not sure how to make a lesson that's not only retainable enough to the kid but also interesting to some extent (I don't want to scare her away from the game lol). I played her in a game and I found that she moved all of the pieces with little reasoning, at a few points I asked what her thought processes behind a move were, and I always got the same response, "I don't know..."

Her mother expressed interest in her learning openings, but she just didn't seem the slightest bit interested when I tried to sit down with her and explain the french defense... If anyone has any experience or expertise in this area please help! We have another session scheduled for Thursday.

I think starting with endgame tactics is a great way to learn about the strengths and weaknesses of each piece and it's less overwhelming than opening and middlegame strategy. You could show her how to mate with a rook and king, the ladder mate with two rooks, how to defend to stalemate with a lone king against a king and pawn, let her play with a queen against your one rook, or two bishops against two knights, or similar things. My niece is ten and she isn't that into chess, but she seems to enjoy that more than playing games. I also set up mate-in-one middlegame positions for her and tell her that she can win in one move. You could set up a late middlegame position with a few pieces and play it out, or even give her a winning passed pawn and see if she can promote it. If you want to play from the starting position, I once heard Yasser Seirawan say that when he plays with kids he allows them to switch sides when they realize they've blundered, and it prevents them from getting frustrated and quitting.

Forget about trying to explain the French defense to her. If she is not interested in chess, then she won’t be interested in the ‘boring’ French.

You could try chatting with her about things that she is interested in whilst playing. Find out her interests, etc. The easiest way to get a kid to cooperate is to get them to like you, lol. Personally I’m not much good with kids. I find it really hard to sustain a conversation with them, so if you are like me you could try giving her some sort of incentive such as sweets, slime (lots of girls like that stuff), crisps, or whatever rocks her boat.

Start with some easy checkmate patterns, mate in 1. See if they can identify those. If they struggle with that, then that's a better thing to concentrate on.

When they get a better idea of how to end a game, even if it's super vague or easy with a backrank checkmate, it should make it easier to work backwards from there rather than working towards an end goal that they don't really understand.

Regarding games: teach fundamentals, not openings. Control the centre, develop all pieces, castle. Explain the reasoning that pieces need to be active to get those checkmate positions.

Don't teach specific openings and especially don't teach the French. You want them to win by checkmating, not by boring their opponent to death.

Just play games and go from there bit like mr shaible from queens gambit play a game and teach at the same time is my advice ,make her want to beat you, if she not interested in winning she won't learn anything and has no real interest in the game , just pushy parents xxx

Be her Mr Shaibel xxx that's obviously what the family want xxx and when she has beaten you finish the lessons

@tylerkirk I'm not sure in what "phase of interest" the child is at the moment, but it seems to me, that you first need to motivate the child to "reach out for more".

This can be done for example by the child having (more) fun playing chess, which means, you should give the child a feeling of competence and success by letting the child win against you (and you beeing very excited or pseudo-funny-angry, when the child takes your queen for example).

If you have passed that stage, the interest may be enough to try out some very basic capturing-pieces-themes and so on...

A good read may be "Raise a Genius" by Laszlo Polgar; here are a few lines out of the book:

=> "Q: There is at least one aspect of your method that astonishes everyone: namely your results in
the field of chess pedagogy. How did your daughters learn to play chess at the age of 4 or 5?
How can one achieve disciplined and continuous work in infants?

A: One thing is certain: one can never achieve serious pedagogical results, especially at a high level,
through coercion. One can teach chess only by means of love and the love of the game. If I may
advise: one should make sure that before everything the father or mother should not diminish
the child’s habit of chess playing by too much severity. We should make sure not to always win
against the child; we should let them win sometimes so that they feel that they also are capable
of thinking. In this way we should bring them to a feeling of success."

Have fun and good luck!

Never let the student win unless they have won letting someone win is against all ethics of the game that is completely wrong advice from darkleinejos reference all you teach the student then is you're a snake. Never let someone win cause they will question it and go into a downwards spiral , never ever let the student win until they have beaten you truthfully

@tylerkirk said in #1:
> Hey guys- recently when I was playing OTB in public, someone approached me and asked if I could tutor their kid in chess, I said I could teach them the basics. The issue comes in with her age, she's 9, and I'm not sure how to make a lesson that's not only retainable enough to the kid but also interesting to some extent (I don't want to scare her away from the game lol). I played her in a game and I found that she moved all of the pieces with little reasoning, at a few points I asked what her thought processes behind a move were, and I always got the same response, "I don't know..."
>
> Her mother expressed interest in her learning openings, but she just didn't seem the slightest bit interested when I tried to sit down with her and explain the french defense... If anyone has any experience or expertise in this area please help! We have another session scheduled for Thursday.
Hi ! I have a long time experience on teaching kids at any level and any age bracket. I think I can help you. If you are interested, please message me.

@SOJB said in #8:
> Never let the student win unless they have won letting someone win is against all ethics of the game that is completely wrong advice from darkleinejos reference all you teach the student then is you're a snake. Never let someone win cause they will question it and go into a downwards spiral , never ever let the student win until they have beaten you truthfully

OMG!