Wow. Nice subject. Compliments to the OP. Unfortunately you could write a book to answer this one. I will try my best to be brief. After all it will take caco half the day to read her PM I sent her. Don't want to overwhelm too much! First standing at the back of the box (nearer the catcher) is absolutely and unequivocally correct. Less reaction time is NEVER a good thing. So that extra fraction of a second you gain by being back helps. Now I get that in youth ball you get some umps who want to call that low strike. With a 6'2" 13u I feel this pain. He gets strikes called at his shins regularly. Moving up in the box may help these at least be knee high but it also decreases reaction time. And again I believe if you won't do it at the highest levels don't do it now. If your son gets called out on strikes with a shin high pitch its not the end of the world. And there is no such thing as moving up in the box to 'get it before it breaks'. This is yet another of the great baseball myths. Plus if you believe it can have that much 'late break' then it will be a ball. Now as for standing closer or further from the plate I always prefer closer. Crowd the plate if you can. Remember plate 'coverage' is a tricky thing. Do some research on the node of a bat (sweet spot) its not as big as you think. Hitting a ball squarely with the last inch of a bat doesn't do you much good. Same thing on the handle. So really you have to be able to cover the whole plate with the sweet spot. This is where the key is to be up on the plate and let the ball travel to hit the outside pitch. Hit the down the middle pitch out in front and hit the inside pitch well out in front. Extension happens AFTER contact in all cases except when you are fooled and take a weak desparate cut. so hopefully you are not being taught to throw your hands at the ball and extend to hit the outside pitch. Then there is the down and away pitch. Look at mlb batting averages on this one. Not good. Bottom line is if a pitcher can paint the black at the knees there all day he will win the war. Plain and simple. Got to take these early in the count and fight them off late. There is very lose to zero percent chance of pulling these with power. So don't swing or with 2 strikes try to just serve them into right field or foul it off. This is one pitch you simply can not cover. You would have to practically be standing on the plate.