Want the deeper method behind this?
The full roll-before-you-kick approach this page's substitutions are built on.
Read the afraid-of-the-ball guideAdapting the 7-Day Challenge for a Child Who's Afraid of the Ball
Play Plans & Challenges
None of the 7-Day Challenge's seven games need throwing out for a ball-shy child.
Most of them just need running differently, and this page says exactly which ones and how. Below is a day-by-day substitution for all seven days, a clear sign that it's time to try a day's standard version again and one repeatable opening line that keeps the week from feeling like a countdown. Day 1 already has its own full page, so it's linked here rather than repeated.
Not every day needs adapting
What Actually Needs to Change
The seven official days mostly centre on moving or aiming the ball, which is exactly the part that's hard for a child who's afraid of it. So most days do need a lighter, roll-first version rather than being skipped, but not all of them, and not by much.
The rule this page applies throughout is simple: roll or gently nudge the ball wherever the official version asks for a kick. That's the same method used on this site's own guide for a child afraid of the ball, borrowed here as a tool rather than re-argued.
Day 1 already has its own dedicated page, including a rolling-only branch. This page starts its own detailed coverage from Day 2.
Seven days, one running adjustment
The Week, Day by Day
Day 1. Covered in full on its own page, including the rolling-only branch for a ball-shy child. Start there.
Day 2, Traffic Lights. Normally a colour-cued dribbling game. Swap dribbling for rolling the ball back and forth with the colour cues still setting the pace: stop on red, roll slowly on amber, roll freely on green. The game's actual skill, reacting to a call, stays unchanged even though the ball never gets kicked.
Day 3, Copy My Move. Already the easiest day to run as printed. Inventing a way to move the ball naturally allows rolling, nudging with a foot sole or pushing with a hand as valid, funny answers. No real adaptation is needed beyond letting rolling count.
Day 4, Tiny Targets. Normally a small-target kicking game. Roll towards the targets instead of kicking, keeping the shared count rather than switching to a score kept against each other.
Day 5, Beat Your Best. The child already sets the difficulty here, so let them set it in rolls instead of kicks, and count a "best" purely in successful rolls stopped near the target.
Day 6, Mix Two Games. The child glues two earlier days together under their own rules, which makes it a natural check-in: if the child's own mix starts including a kick they weren't asked to do, that's worth noticing.
Day 7, Child's Choice. Left entirely as printed. Whatever the child chooses, rolling or otherwise, is the right answer, since the whole week has been building towards them choosing freely.
One line, said the same way each time
What to Say Before Each Session
Repeating a single low-stakes opening line across the week matters more here than any one day's wording. Naming "Day 4" or "the challenge" out loud can turn a whole week into a countdown a nervous child feels measured against.
Skip the day number and how many are left. Skip comparing tonight to how a sibling or an earlier day went, too.
Watch the child, not the calendar
The Sign It's Time to Try the Standard Version
If the child starts nudging, stopping or gently kicking the ball with a foot on their own, unprompted, across two sessions in a row, without flinching or hesitating first, that's the sign to offer that day's standard version again. There's no need to wait for Day 7 or start the whole week over.
Treat it as an offer, not a switch. Ask lightly whether they want to try the normal way tonight, and if the answer is no, the rolling version is still a complete, good session.
This can happen on Day 3 or Day 6. There's no fixed day it's supposed to happen by.
Small steps, watched closely, beat a set pace
Why Small Steps Work Better Than a Fixed Timetable
A systematic review of exposure-based approaches for children's fears found that gradual, small-step approaches to a feared trigger are a reasonable structure (Plaisted, Waite, Gordon and Creswell, 2021). Read the systematic review on optimising exposure for children and adolescents. This is a clinical review of children receiving structured therapeutic exposure for diagnosed anxiety, OCD or PTSD, not a study of everyday football play or ordinary childhood wariness, and the review itself notes that findings were rarely replicated between individual studies. It's used here only as background for why graded, watched-closely steps make sense, not as proof about this specific week.
See how Our Kickabout researches its pages.
Beyond this week
Where This Fits
This page is the whole-week adaptation. The afraid-of-the-ball guide is the deeper method behind every substitution here, not a repeat of it, and the Day 1 plan is the detailed first evening, which this page assumes and builds past.
If a day gets missed, or you need to move the whole week indoors, those are the two natural next reads. Routes below.
Quick answers
Common Questions About Adapting the 7-Day Challenge
Do we need to skip the 7-Day Challenge if our child is scared of the ball?
No. Most days just need running as a roll instead of a kick; only the ball-contact part changes, not the games themselves.
How do you know when to stop adapting the games?
When the child starts nudging or gently kicking the ball on their own, unprompted and without flinching, across two sessions in a row, it's a fair moment to offer the standard version again.
What do you say before playing if your child is nervous about the ball?
Something small and repeatable that doesn't name the day number or the word challenge, such as "shall we have a go at tonight's game the rolling way," said the same way each time.
Keep going
Where to Go From Here
Pick the next step depending on whether you want the method behind this, haven't started Day 1 yet or want the whole week in one place.
Not started Day 1 yet?
The detailed first evening this page assumes and builds past.
Read the Day 1 planSee the whole week in one place?
All seven official days and their games, start to finish.
Start the 7-Day ChallengeTonight's five minutes
Whatever tonight's game is, run it as a roll instead.
That's the entire adjustment. Nothing else about the week needs to change until your child changes it first.