Struggling with a team. Advice please

[ChefLamont]

I agree with make the leader of the group an ally. There is usually a kid or two that the rest look up to. Turn them into an ally and there will rapid change. Otherwise you are chasing flare-ups in the middle of the forest fire. I have had similar experiences with talent and morale with drafted rec teams. On paper, those teams should have mopped the field with the rest of the rec teams. However, because the lead kid(s) had a terrible attitude, we were a 500 team at best.

 

[BB875]

Boy, you are doing an amazing thing here! I really love the advice of working more on life lessons through softball. Little victories here and there would be good to share/celebrate with the kids. They go crazy? Bring about 250 water balloons to practice when its hot and let them go crazy! Turn drills into games & if you succeed the reward is a piece of candy. Make the drills competitions, make it fun- ignore the chirping. Its not easy but the comments are meant to poke you. For example, I have a baserunning drill for my HS team to help them leave with the pitch on time. I set a dum-dum sucker in the basepath about 10-12 feet from 1st base. A live pitcher throws to the catcher, the catcher throws to 1st base, and the runner has to grab the candy and beat the throw to keep it. We also play a game called Thunderball that involves hitting, running, teamwork, and competition! The kids get a little chirpy at each other, but they are highly competitive, like most kids. I'm sure there are tons of ideas out there to build competition into drills that are fun.

Building relationships will help with credibility. Like another post said, " they don't care what you know until they know how much you care" is spot on. I also like reaching out to a couple of the natural leaders and talk with them individually about the challenges. Empower them to help you. Never run laps as a punishment - what does that teach you about the game anyway? Sure there are consequences for actions in life, but I bet they see that every day. Its not needed in this setting. The softball field should be a fun place to get away from the problems at home. Again, wow, you took on a huge challenge, but the game needs more people like you!