It's a process

[Elk Grove Hurricane]

Keep repeating this to myself. My oldest dd plays rec ball only. This is her third serious year of softball, and I signed her up for a great camp recently. I actually used many of the lessons that the camp taught in my men's slow pitch league, and I know they worked for me (all fundamentals that I had just gotten lazy with or forgot over the years). So, as we are playing catch, I noticed she just isn't doing anything they told her. I asked her about it, and she tells me "my way works for me, so I'm going with it." As you would all expect, her perception isn't quite right! So, I keep telling myself, it's a process. We've gone from never playing catch outside of a game and practice (two years ago), to reluctantly hitting and/or playing catch (last year), to really wanting to play almost every day this year. Hopefully we'll get the light bulb moment one of these days and doing it right will be the next step. I see some ability there, and some things that she does very well, but these traits are overshadowed by the undisciplined or sloppy traits in others. But still, there's progress, and the light bulb with her tends to come on out of nowhere with everything else. It's just not always easy to remember its a process.

 

[teammom2]

As long as you're comfortable waiting for her to come around and are confident that she will, I guess everything is fine. I myself wouldn't have/don't have that kind of patience. I think the conversation would have gone along the lines of "fine, continue to do it your way and don't get any better, and don't expect me to give you these types of camp opportunities. My money is too valuable to have it wasted on camps if you already know everything." Of course I know it's a process too, but if my DD wasn't even attempting to try something new I wouldn't be pleased. I expect my daughters take ownership of their weaknesses and strive to improve them. Overnight improvement is not expected!

My daughter is attending a camp at the University of Iowa next week. I fully expect her to make the most of it. Same goes for my older daughter attending the Jennie Finch camp later in August.

 

[Elk Grove Hurricane]

Believe me, teammom2, its frustrating. And my initial reaction was just like yours- why in the world am I paying for this if you're not going to listen? But I learned the hard way with this one how stubborn she can be, and that she almost always has to learn the hard way on everything. When she was at the camp, surrounded by kids who were more advanced, she really responded. But away from that setting, I'm still trying to figure out a way to remind her that repetition means doing it the right way, not the way you want. I'm just trying to remember that she is working, and hoping that when we get back to practice in a couple of weeks and sees how everyone is improving, then the lessons will click in.