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9 replies

Getting my kid to "Relax" during practice

norstarnorstar10+ posts
My son is the starting SS for his travel and MS team. Fielding balls during games has never been a problem.

The issue he has is with practice. When he knows the ball is coming his way, he over thinks and does boot some.

Does anyone have any suggestions that I might use to calm him down or just treat practice like a game?

Thanks...
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T Texan1,000+ posts
Maybe try not attending practice for a week or two.

He could just be trying too hard. Or he could be feeling your presence during practice, whereas during the game anything not on the field is "zoned out" and thus it isn't a problem for him.

That is not to say that you are doing anything to cause such, it could merely be your son putting pressure on himself.

Or this could be completely off base.

I have seen kids who didn't perform as well in practice as the game, because they were focused in the game but not in practice. But this does not sound like your situation. So it has to be something else.
norstarnorstar10+ posts
quote:
Originally posted by Texan:
Maybe try not attending practice for a week or two.

He could just be trying too hard. Or he could be feeling your presence during practice, whereas during the game anything not on the field is "zoned out" and thus it isn't a problem for him.

That is not to say that you are doing anything to cause such, it could merely be your son putting pressure on himself.

Or this could be completely off base.

I have seen kids who didn't perform as well in practice as the game, because they were focused in the game but not in practice. But this does not sound like your situation. So it has to be something else.


I don't know.. He tells me that when he knows the ball is coming to him.. He thinks too much about it...

During games, He doesn't think about fielding the ball, he just reacts naturally. I honestly don't put any pressure on him because I know he is fine when the games are being played. Plus, I wouldn't do that anyway.
IR2BIR2B10+ posts
Im going to have to agree with redbird. When i came into high school the first thing i was told during fielding practice was to charge everything no matter how hard it is hit. At first he may only take 1 or 2 steps in his charge, but soon he will realize it helps and take 3 to 4 steps on hard hit balls.
I INshocker100+ posts
Although redbird has good advice, in practice he should be there to work on different kinds of groundballs and how to attack those balls. If you just do the same thing over again, you will lose out on valuable practice time perfecting different methods.

I've actually never heard of somebody being nervous in practice...does his coach yell at him if he boots a ball? If it wasn't his coach yelling or saying something to him if he screws up I don't know what it is.

I think you just need to remind your son practice time is for him to get better. If he boots a ball it is not a big deal because that is why he is there.

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