Making mistakes at practice and during games, DD struggles to recover

[JoeBob]

Our DD is a good softball player, she's athletic and loves the game. As with many 14yr old Girls her emotions swing all over the place. One of the things we have consistently struggled with her on is how hard she is on herself when she makes a mistake at practice or during a game. She gets all in her head and can't shake it and then it starts to affect how she plays and her attitude with the other girls and the coaches. She's not "mean" she just gets quite and grumpy.

I'm not even sure where to start with this, she is SO SO SO hard on herself, we've tried so many different approaches and spoke to her that she doesn't need to take it so seriously.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Nuwin]

We got DD the book You Got This! Metal Game Skills for Young Softball Players for Christmas. Target age says 8-14 but my adult interpretation is the story is told better for younger side of that range.

What Drives Winning has a series of books I have read, but in hindsight, if you watch enough of the videos they publish on their YouTube channel, you get the majority of the books contents.

 

[JoeBob]

Thanks for the info, this is very helpful.

We got DD the book You Got This! Metal Game Skills for Young Softball Players for Christmas. Target age says 8-14 but my adult interpretation is the story is told better for younger side of that range.

What Drives Winning has a series of books I have read, but in hindsight, if you watch enough of the videos they publish on their YouTube channel, you get the majority of the books contents.

 

[gmorg]

I've had this discussion with my dd also. It's natural to be hard on yourself.
Practice, ok this is the place to take risks and learn. Learn from mistakes and then execute on next rotation in drills. Mistakes in practice should not be because of failure to pay attention, but rather of conditioning your body to move and perform as demonstrated.

Games, I say you get 5 seconds to be upset at yourself. Once those 5 seconds are over that's it. You can't carry that further because then it will affect the next play/at bat. You make a fielding mistake, make it up in an at bat. Mess up an at bat, make it up in field.

Body language and attitude are things they control. If she has plans to play in college, those behaviors may put her at a disadvantage. Coaches want to see how you deal with success and failure. Failure is just a different way to learn and softball is full of failure moments.

14u is a great age to have these life lessons discussions!

Sent from my LE2115 using Tapatalk

 

[kibadbo]

There are many books that can help. They all will have similarities of what they teach. So you can't go too wrong with any of the recommendations that you see here.

But the book that had the biggest impact on my daughter was https://headsupbaseball2.com/ by Dr Tom Hanson. He worked with FSU softball recently as well as with a long list of pro baseball guys. The book gives practical information about how to handle yourself on the field. DD has read it multiple times and has half of it highlighted and bookmarked. It made an immediate impact on her play, so we started using some of his techniques on her younger sister for volleyball. Highly recommended.

 

[quincy]

DD had a C that would go out to her when she was going sideways. C seemed to talk about anything but SB. Pointing at the boy in the stands was my 1st clue.

Do not underestimate the right C keeping your DD mentally on track even at younger ages.

 

[JoeBob]

DD had a C that would go out to her when she was going sideways. C seemed to talk about anything but SB. Pointing at the boy in the stands was my 1st clue.

Do not underestimate the right C keeping your DD mentally on track even at younger ages.

LOL, I love this idea. Problem is my DD is the C.

 

[Cannonball]

Our DD is a good softball player, she's athletic and loves the game. As with many 14yr old Girls her emotions swing all over the place. One of the things we have consistently struggled with her on is how hard she is on herself when she makes a mistake at practice or during a game. She gets all in her head and can't shake it and then it starts to affect how she plays and her attitude with the other girls and the coaches. She's not "mean" she just gets quite and grumpy.

I'm not even sure where to start with this, she is SO SO SO hard on herself, we've tried so many different approaches and spoke to her that she doesn't need to take it so seriously.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

My DD was as well. What you have to do is teach your DD how to turn that negative into a positive. When I was in HS, I was a very good free throw shooter. Why? When I missed a FT, I was "excited," My thought process was that I was a 90%+ FT shooter and so, when I missed, it meant that I was going to make 9 FT in a row. I took that same mindset to the plate in baseball. I figured I was a .500 hitter. So, if I made an out, my mindset was that I had 3 at-bats left and 2 hits. I taught my DD to think that way although it took some time. By the time she was in HS, she had learned how to turn negatives into positives. Good luck with your DD.

 

[JoeBob]

My DD was as well. What you have to do is teach your DD how to turn that negative into a positive. When I was in HS, I was a very good free throw shooter. Why? When I missed a FT, I was "excited," My thought process was that I was a 90%+ FT shooter and so, when I missed, it meant that I was going to make 9 FT in a row. I took that same mindset to the plate in baseball. I figured I was a .500 hitter. So, if I made an out, my mindset was that I had 3 at-bats left and 2 hits. I taught my DD to think that way although it took some time. By the time she was in HS, she had learned how to turn negatives into positives. Good luck with your DD.

Wow I love that!!!

 

[Nuwin]

Had a minute to come back to this after a bit more thought. Massive tl;dr alert.

I know getting our children over the hump is the focus, and a number of books and strategies are being presented as expected. But you can go a step further and ask how you can improve as a parent and/or coach. I was a coach for a bit, now happy to just be a parent.

Some of the things I have done...

I try to react to my DD's play the same as I react to any of her teammates. I don't chirp at her teammates for a mistake, so why should I chirp at her? I know we're well meaning, but I can demonstrate being more even-keel as a spectator or coach. When my kids were learning to walk, I figured out that I can't be the first to react when they fall. If I reacted, they cried 100% of the time. If I no-sold it, they only cried if they were really hurt. Sometimes they're reacting to our energy more than the event.

Evaluate how you communicate and be honest with yourself on how effective it is. I stopped talking about getting out of her comfort zone as an example. Instead I rephrased it as as growing our comfort zone. I'm not really changing the concept, but changing the phrasing can be what unlocks understanding.

As an extension of that point, take a time to revisit progress. We get so caught up in the grind that we often don't look back to appreciate how far we've come. I have a lot of video, so I can make it sport specific. But you can use school subjects as an example. There was a time when 3+5 was hard. Now we can do that with really no perceived effort.

Finally, we're big Nebraska volleyball fans in our house. If you watch enough sports together, you can see things happen in real time and bring attention to it. In the video below, you can see Ally Batenhorst make an embarrassingly bad play on a huge stage. You see Merritt Beason say "we got you" after. Then Ally goes kill, kill, block for the next 3 points. If she pouts or lets her frustration linger, does she make those plays? Our viewing of Nebraska football suggests otherwise unfortunately. LOL. But now you have tangible behavior they can model external to their day to day life. I know as a boy, we emulated our favorite baseball players growing up. It's another learning tool at your disposal. "FRS" in the title is a reference to her mentioning "Failure Recovery System" in the post game presser. She didn't detail what exactly it was that I recall but the two resources I shared in an earlier post can give suggestions on how to go about it. (I wish whoever posted the video would have combined the presser and the action.)