Push or let go

Encourage, not push.  Big difference.He's still at an age where your guidance and mentoring are critical.  Don't let go.

I prefer the term encourage rather than push.  Push means you are pushing your ambition on to the child.  Encourage means you are fully supporting their respective hopes and dreams no matter where it may lead.  If you are pushing, it seems to me there may be a breakdown on two levels.  One level where the parent's expectations are not met and one level where the child's desire is for being a child rather than being forced to accept someone else's predetermined path for their future. 

If the child loves the game with all their heart, then push yourself to facilitate that love.  Push yourself to work extra hours so you may have the resources to allow them to receive top level instruction and to play on travel teams if they are capable of that.  Push yourself to support them but do not push them.  I believe you will ultimately get the opposite of your desire if you push.  

When my son was 11 I took him to watch a practice of a very high level travel team a friend's son played for.  He was mesmerized by the pace of practice, the hustle, the skill level, the all out effort the kids gave on every ball hit their way.  He knew instantly that he wanted to do that.  I didn't push him at all, but I did show him what really good baseball looks like for his age and gave him the opportunity - he did (does) the rest and can't get enough of it.

13u is a tough year for kids.  In some areas they are entering Jr High, they are dealing with hormones, and they get really busy.  If you were to ever push your kid, I think that is the worst age you could pick to do so.  I agree with the others, encourage is the better option, but I'd even back off of that a bit.  This is the age where they start trying new things at school, different school sports, band/choir, etc.  They are becoming young adults and it is the beginning of them finding out the things in life that they like/dislike.  

We just went through that 13u year with our son and he decided to focus on football/baseball and drop basketball for next season.  I'm against it, but I never told him that.  I just said "Are you sure that's what you want to do" and he said yes.      

The best thing you can do is encourage him and offer help with extra practice. Some of the best fun I had with my kids were individual practices. I never told my kids they had to go out and practice. The hardest I ever pushed was asking if they were reaching their goals laying on the sofa.

Well you could just do what my Dad did. "If you want to play games fine. I didn't get the chance to play games. I had to work the feilds. So you can either play games. Or you can get to work. But one thing is for sure. Your ass ain't going to lay around while I work." Worked for me.

Encourage and hopefully your coach will do the pushing.

Although if your coach is too nice or laid back that won't be good either. JMO

I let my boys decide for themselves as well.

Problem is they think they know what they want, when they really don't.

Both have quit football and as a result regressed in their work ethic.

Don't let him get lazy. It will become his habit.

Then there is no turning back.

I'm not sure what is right or wrong.  Maybe some need a little push while some do better without.

What I do know for sure is what I have experienced.  My oldest son loved basketball.  As a young boy he wasn't any good at it.  Always the last guy on the on bench.  Wen he got to HS he wanted to go out for the team.  I didn't encourage or discourage, but I would have been fine had he quit..  Long story short by the time he was a senior he was the only senior still on the team and played in the State Championship.

Son #2 was very athletic and especially good at baseball from the first time he played.  I actually had visions of him someday playing in he Big Leagues.  I pushed and pushed hard because it seemed like the right thing to do at the time.  He did play some minor league baseball in the Cincinnati Reds organization. Got hurt, got released and never really tried to keep playing.

Son #3 was a scrawny young boy, uncoordinated, but loved baseball because of his older brother and his dad.  When he was 13 he told me he wanted to play in the major leagues.  At the time he was the worst player on his local 13 year old team.  I assured him that his first goal should be to play in college, but at the time that really seemed impossible.  I didn't want to destroy his dreams.  I really never pushed him even a little because I didn't want him to think it was that important.  Long story short, at age 22 he was pitching in the major leagues.

If I were to have another son, which will never happen, I would not push him.  Doesn't mean that is the right approach.  It is just based on what I have experienced first hand.

All three turned out OK.  Now I deal with grand kids. Much easier!

Thank you all for your advice and sharing your experiences.  I appreciate it. Part of what he's dealing with right now is the head coach gives him a real hard time, jokes around too much, and my son feels like he doesn't get the reps in practice that his teammates get. I told him he's got to get mentally tough and, if he continues, he'll be on teams where he and a coach or players are not going to always get along.  I felt a little torn to either push him to give the coach no reason not to take him serious or let it go and see if he's really got the guts to get through this. 

I think you don't ever really push -- except if the kid isn't living up to his part of the basic bargain.   You find a way to  enable what's inside the kid to develop and flourish.

I'll give you an example.   When my guy first started playing baseball, he was really truly indifferent to it.  He was one of those kids in the first couple of years in little league who would pick flowers in the outfield.  Nobody wanted to play catch with him during practice cause he would be making goofy throws all over the place, and wouldn't take throwing drills seriously.  As he matured, he became a little more focused but was still  not really into it --  though his pure athleticism gradually became harder and harder to miss.

First turning point came when he was 11,  I was assistant coach to a really amazingly good coach, who  helped the kid see that he could actually be good at this game if he worked at it.   Thanks to that coach, his  interest in the game perked up.  He joined a travel team -- not the most talented team -- but one coached by a mensch of a guy, who really believed in him and gave him lots of opportunities to succeed -- which the kid mostly did.   As a result he became much more into the game.. He actually started working hard to get better at the game.  

I'm not saying it went swimmingly from there.  Come freshman year in HS, for example,  he was cut (in favor of certain lesser players who are long gone by now, but played travel with the then JV coach).  I thought he'd be crushed -- he was -- but the thing that took me by surprise is that he was completely unwilling to give up on what had become his dream buy then.  He went on  to work like a fiend with a personal trainer/coach who helped him take his conditioning and his game to another level.  (He was also fortunate that he could keep playing that year, since he was just 14 and played all season long with a 14U team full of 8th graders and other frosh rejects who wanted to keep at it.) All I did was pay the bill and keep encouraging him to believe in himself and work at getting better.   It taught me a lot about him.  From an indifferent little leaguer he had involved into a young man with burning desire and complete determination all coming from someplace inside of him. I think if I had "pushed" he would have resented me and pushed back and his  own internal drive would have never taken over.

 On the other hand, if I had just stood by and let the JV's coaches assessment be the last word, that would have been a mistake of a different kind.  Instead of enabling him, I would have been partly responsible for disabling him.  So I think I did my part not by using but by believing in him and being will to pay for a  personal trainer/coach that could help him do the actual work it took to keep his dream alive. 

By the way, the then JV coach  who cut the kid and kept others that fizzled out quickly has long since admitted he made a mistake in cutting the kid.  In fact, my son is playing for his travel team now.   He and that coach have a great relationship; he is one of the kid's biggest supporters.   Irony of ironies.

 Of course the kid never lets the coach forget what a mistake he made.  Hit a grand slam the other day and he said to the coach  "And you cut this bat? Don't you feel silly? "  They had a good laugh over that. 

Good advice above. My father pushed too hard, I snapped just before high school age and he backed off, but his involvement dropped off dramatically. After that, I think the only time he really intervened was after a BRUTAL practice as a HS freshman when the varsity coaches brought me over with the big boys. An ex-minor leaguer turned assistant was pissing on fungoes to me at short and I was intimidated by it and was coming up on some balls (our field was notorious for bad hops at short). He laid into me, called me a p--sy, and proceeded to hit them as hard as he could, over and over. Took a bad hop to the throat, cried, and packed up my gear. I was done with baseball at that point, luckily my dad was at that practice for whatever reason and made me turn my a** around and tell the coach I wanted to finish the bucket. I think the message there translated to more than just baseball, and I appreciated it.

It's a fine line to walk for sure. My pony league team had a current MLB all star (who also could have been a 2nd rounder as a pitcher), a highly regarded MLB reliever, and a guy who played 3 seasons in the bigs on it. We also had a guy who was better than all three despite being younger and smaller. He gets to high school, got a girlfriend and started picking up skateboarding. Was often late, missed practices, and eventually quit midway through his freshman year. I'm guessing he was a mid 80's guy then. His father rarely went to games, didn't really care about his baseball, and we often had to give him rides to the games. I haven't seen the kid since we were college aged, he grew into what would have been a nice big league body. When I see my ex teammates play on TV, I always think back to him and wonder how he feels seeing them play.

I think as long as you support him emotionally and show  you care, you will be fine. Occasionally he may need some tough love or some prodding. If he wants to have a catch or needs some extra work with the bat, make yourself available. I think the fact that you are asking speaks volumes though, many dads have too much pride to ask.

My father dropped me off at Pop Warner football at a few weeks past my 9th birthday.

I had crazy ideas about football for the late 60's and early 70's and that was that the field was really big and if you threw the ball around it would be easier to score.  I did not like the physical part of the game because I was made to be an offensive lineman rather than a big wideout that I would have been today.

My father used go nuts after games and practices.  Head slapping the helmet, grabbing the facemask and all the stuff the Lombardi want to be's did.  By 12 I had enough and refused to go back the following year.  It nearly caused my house to burn down and a divorce between my parents before my mother could talk him down.

I never played a down of HS football and never went to a game until - my younger brother who was 4" shorter and 25 lbs lighter became a linebacker.  He never was forced to play Pop Warner and loved the contact.  My father was a pig in poop and learned an important lesson in the process: 

You can support but you cannot force.

I have a 12u player....the thing I don't get about this question is WHY would you stay with a coach that your son isn't jiving with? There are fun easy going coaches that are just there to spend time with their son...and there are more serious, teach the proper fundamentals and get the player ready for high school coaches, and there are some very rare in-between coaches...if your kid doesn't like the horse play why haven't you found another team for next year?

CaCO3Girl,

I think one of the great life lessons baseball offers is the importance of fulfilling commitment to others.  If you sign up for a team, you owe it to teammates to be committed for the duration of the season.  Things would have to be quite a bit worse than what Michael27 describes to warrant backing out of that commitment. 

Also, if a player has aspirations to play at a higher level, it is highly likely that he will experience coaches he doesn't like or "jive" with.  That player's love for the game must be stronger than his willingness to let such a coach alter his course.

Amen to that.   This is one of the biggest things.  Coaches come in such a vast variety of flavors.  Unfortunately, you don't often get to chose your coach. 

cabbagedad,

I agree commitments must be fulfilled, that is why I wrote for next year, our season is about to end this weekend I assumed it was the same for the poster.

I also agree that there will be many people, coaches included, that kids will not jive with...however, at 12 if your kid isn't getting reps and doesn't respond well to his coaching style I see no reason to sign on for another year.  At 16/17 yeah, get over it, but at 12 the kid should be learning all he can and if he wants a more serious coach less prone to horse play I think the parent should accept that the kid may need a different coach to reach his potential.

It does concern me though that the OP's son doesn't seem to still love the game, even with the coach he isn't jiving with....my kid will play in -10 degree weather while snowing if I'd let him. 

Have to agree CaCO3Girl on the coach thing for a 12 year olds and younger.  It is pretty well documented that one of the biggest reasons young kids give up on a sport is awful experiences with awful coaches.  The number of flat out dogs coaching youth sports who shouldn't be let near kids not their own is surprisingly  high. Admittedly, most of the dogs are guys coaching rec ball. And one should hope and expect to find far less of that in travel than in rec,  I mean you'd expect travel coaches to be somewhat professional, less inclined to play favorites, better at assessing talent, better at developing kids, better at getting the best out of each individual kid, etc.  And I suppose for the most part that's probably true.  But I've seen my share of dogs in the travel business too.  No reason to stick with a dog that is turning your kid off to the game, especially not at a young and impressionable age.  As you get into HS and beyond though,  it gets harder and harder and then becomes darned near impossible to choose your own coach.  (Not unless you are a stud extraordinaire that absolutely everybody wants.)

What the coach did here is abuse. He mentally assaulted him. he put him in a position to get injured. Had this been my son I would have been upset he walked off the field. Then I would have gone to the AD and had a discussion that would have had the coach praying he isn't fired. You can motivated my kids all you want. But you don't try to injure them.

i played for old school coaches in high school and college. I know what it's like. My kids (now 26 and 21) have played for demanding coaches in high school and college. I'm not sure when the change took place. But a line has been placed between demanding and abusive.

I know it was abuse. Outside of getting teary eyed at my wedding and the occasional movie, that may have been the last time I cried in my life. And knowing my dad, I am assuming the only reason he didn't get in his face or do much worse was probably a combination of  1) the dude was 6'6 and probably 240 and 2) I was a freshman getting my first sniff of varsity baseball, and I had three more years with this coaching staff and he didn't want to jeopardize anything and 3) my father was good friends with those coaches' really good friend.

Those coaches were gone at the end of that season anyhow, so it didn't matter. The manager fired because he let players dip at practice and would let them take a pinch from his can if they needed. The assistant was an ex minor leaguer who many felt was a shady dude. Not sure if it was true, but the word from a pretty reliable source was he was in charge of spending and distributing a large donation from a major league alum. Once the AD started digging, it was learned thousands went to support his cocaine habit. The coach that beat the hell out of me ended up being the varsity manager at another high school the next year. I got my revenge sophomore year when I two-hit his team in the last game of the regular season when they needed a win to make the state playoffs. And yes, that was motivation.

It's sad, because I genuinely liked the manager and still like him to this day. He just made a string of poor decisions with the tobacco, and it shows how lawless the program was. I believe he was more of the "in" for the two assistants, who likely were not going to get hired as head coach, because it felt like they were the ones running the show. He was just the guy who was already a teacher and had the clean background.