12-year old performance problems

Question
QUESTION: My son actually has some natural ability, and when he
and I work together, his swing looks great, he throws
great, and his fielding is pretty darn good, too.  But,
as soon as he gets on the practice field, he suddenly
looks like "the kid that has never played before".  He
throws weak little rainbow tosses, and chops at pitches
outside the strike zone, and lets ground balls dribble
between his legs.  His coaches have him pegged as the
team "special case" and spend extra time with him
working on the fundamentals, and they praise him
whenever he does anything that even remotely looks like
success.  But the thing is, he already knows the
fundamentals.  I'm not making him play, and I told him
to quit if he doesn't want to be there, but he says he
wants to stick with it.  He's just not showing anything
in on the field.  I'm completely stumped.  How do you
teach a kid to have some confidence and enthusiasm, to
get his head in the game and actually perform at a
level at least in the neighborhood of his abilities?

ANSWER: Walt:  Thank you for your question.

From your description of your son's team practice efforts, it does sound like he would like to be somewhere else.  

Baseball is one game where practice is fun.  The changes you describe indicate he is bored or truly dislikes what he is doing, or has had a bad experience within that structure that he isn't talking about.

Has he shown those tendencies on teams he has played on in the past?  If not, something must be bothering him to make that drastic a change in his efforts.  It sounds like he is looking for coaches to release him from the team or parents to make him stop playing.

If he has shown those lack of focus and effort tendencies in the past, he probably really doesn't want to be out there; but doesn't want to disappoint anyone.

Enthusiasm is internally driven.  It is the one attribute every athlete, in every sport must have.  Without it, life within the game becomes drudgery and work.  If he has shown that enthusiasm in the past, and this is something entirely new, the key to success is figuring out what has happened to take away that enthusiasm.

Love of what you do is the great motivator in life, no matter what you are attempting to do.  When that is no longer present, the activity becomes drudgery at best.

Has he been playing year round and is burned out?  Does he get along with all his team mates and or coaches, or might there be some internal friction there?

The behaviors you describe don't sound like a kid who hasn't played before, they sound like a kid who doesn't want to play right now.  It may be simple, it may be complicated.  If you can find it, you can work at getting him back to where he was.  

Good luck as you go forward.  I would be very interested in knowing how things progress and any changes as they develop.

Yours in baseball,

Rick

---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: I appreciate the feedback, and your suggestion that he really doesn't want to be there was my first instinct as well.  He didn't want to play last year, so he didn't, but this year he was all gung-ho to sign up.  And I've already told him more than once that he's allowed to quit if this isn't what he wants to do, but he protests those ideas.  Verbally, he sounds confident and motivated, so it looks to me like it's more complicated than simply not wanting to be there.  He just looks easily discouraged to me when he doesn't have immediate success, and I wish I could come up with the magic words to help him "cowboy up" and muscle through this.  Thanks again.

Answer
Walt:  Somewhere in his not wanting to play last year, there may be a clue.

Before last year, was he successful on the teams that he played on?  If he has been successful in the past, he should feel that he will be successful now.

At all levels, baseball is an easy game to play; but a hard game to master.  It is a game of repetition, drilling skills over and over so that come game time, all those reactions come naturally.

Within it's structure is a wonderful opportunity for players to learn and develop many life lessons.

The one big one, handling mistakes and failure.  If you are playing baseball, the opportunity to learn from your mistakes is everywhere.

Success is not the absence of problems but the ability to deal with them successfully.  This ability is the separator between teams and individuals at all levels of the game.

"Every pitcher, batter, fielder, base runner faces tough situations.  None of them always comes through.  Everyone has emotional reaction.  Everyone fails.  The manner in which we cope with these situations ~ the manner in which we control our emotional reactions to them ~ will indicate the quality of our mental disciplines."  (Dorfmann and Kuehl)

The above quote comes from a book entitled "The Mental Game Of Baseball, a guide to peak performance.  It is written by Harvey Dorfmann and Karl Kuehl.

This book became my go to resource when I discovered it in 1993.  These gentlemen have a true understanding of the mental pressures in baseball, and what techniques will help decrease the problems everyone encounters.

Mr. Dorfmann has written two books since, one on pitching and one on hitting.  I have read the pitching book, it is great.  I haven't read the hitting book as yet.

A player's mental game is a skill, just like throwing, hitting, pitching or fielding.  If players consistently work on their mental game during practice, the benefits will carry over into their games.  The opportunities are everywhere to work on this area.

It is truly a rare day in baseball when everything goes well for a baseball player.  Failure is just the opportunity to begin again more intelligently, just like you would do in other elements of your life.

If you go to my website at www.theoleballgame.com, there is a section on Baseball's Mental Game.  You may find some things among those pages that will help.

Please let me know how it is going.  There is something in there somewhere.

Good luck to you both!

Yours in baseball,

Rick