If keeping score is turning your kickabout tense, the scoring system is the problem, not your child.
Some children genuinely don't care about the score. Plenty do, though, and pretending they don't just means the scoreboard is running quietly in their head anyway, minus any of the framing that might help. Rather than avoiding scoring altogether, change what actually earns a point.
Three ways to score
Not just goals, points for shots that miss but were genuinely attempted, first-time touches, anything that took a bit of nerve. It sounds like it might feel like a participation trophy. In practice it just changes what your child is aiming for from minute one, and that turns out to matter a lot.
Add your points together instead of racking them up against each other. "We got to twelve" feels completely different to "I won 8 to 3," and it's still just as satisfying to chase a number upward together.
Nothing fancy, a scrap of paper and a pencil, or chalk on the patio. The physical act of adding a mark after a go, rather than announcing a verbal score, takes some of the heat out of it too.
Tonight's session
Grab a scrap of paper, agree that any brave attempt gets a tally mark whether it goes in or not, and see how the mood of the session changes compared to counting goals alone.
The research behind it
There's a proper bit of research behind this that I only found out about after doing it instinctively for a while: children praised and rewarded for effort (Mueller and Dweck, 1998) tend to keep trying after things go wrong, while children praised mainly for the result tend to shy away from harder tasks once they've had a setback. Scoring effort isn't just a soft option. It's the one more likely to keep your child enjoying the game in six months' time. See how Our Kickabout researches its pages.
Keep going
Five reusable rules this scoring idea is built on, including two more tweaks.
Read Mistake-Proof Football GamesMistake-proof versions of Traffic Lights, Gates and Sharks and Minnows.
Read adapting popular gamesWhether to keep score at all in a one-on-one game, and how to handle it if you do.
Read pressure-free 1v1Tonight's five minutes
One scrap of paper, one pencil, every brave attempt counted.
