Thread: My Daughter's Lack of Enthusiasm for Pitching

Contrary to popular belief, some teenage girls grow up to have full, productive lives without every playing softball.

I have two athletic daughters. One loved to pitch. The other didn't. The one who didn't love to pitch had about 10 times more talent than the one who did. Guess which one became the all-conference D1 pitcher?

The other one quit pitching and playing softball. It really bothered me, because I love softball. But, that is what she wanted. It is her life, so I let her quit.

She ended up being on a college national championship team in basketball, complete with ring and photograph in the college trophy case. By allowing her to do what she wanted to do, I ended up seeing and doing things I never dreamed of. Her pursuit of her true passion was good not only for her, but for me as well.




JRW

JRW...

You are right. Letting them grow up means helping them discover who they are and what they want. This, in turn, is how we hope they will deal with their children, and so forth. When my oldest was born, I looked at my husband and said, "We are going to know joy like we have never known joy...and we are going to know sorrow like we've never known sorrow." He looked at me, "Say what??!" I remember saying to myself, he may not see it now, but he will see it one day. It doesn't necessarily mean bad things happening. Watching them grow causes feelings of ambiguity...happiness and sadness.

Thanks for sharing your story...

Ang

Sandif's daughter is saying she doesn't want to pitch. The kid is not an idiot. She obviously knows that it takes a lot of work to be a pitcher. She doesn't want to do the work to become a pitcher. She wants to spend her time doing something else. It is a totally rational decision.

You have to enjoy the practice in order to become good at something. My one daughter enjoyed pitching practice. It was fun for her. She just liked seeing what she could do with the ball. I had to remind her about pitching practice, and sometimes she didn't want to do it, but once she got going, she would practice forever.

I can tell you my daughter was in that same position as your daughter is now. Let her take a break from it. My daughter started playing as a untility player on the team to take the pressure off. About a year later she was back wanting to pitch and work harder. She is now a senior in High School and looking for a scholarship to play softball pitching. Sometimes kids need a break. If you push to hard they lose interest all together and withdraw all the way.
Suncatcher

Ok well first thing is find her a pitching coach, Your husband might be great but he is also her dad. At her age it will only be a fight to get her out there, trust me I know my father was my coach too.

Also try new practice techniques, keep it interesting, it might be boring for her to do these things. Have her get a catcher so she can throw to something more than a wall. Also my father told be " until you are 18 and you live under my roof you do as I say" and I did, I'm only 26 now but I didn't want to practice either all the time. I didn't get to go with my friends or do anything till I practiced.

Let her try playing a different position, she may find that pitching is the best spot out there and think o geez yeah I need to stick with it.

Don't bribe her, she has to want to do it try letting her pitch to some better players, then she will realize that she will have to keep working to get better or she is going to look bad out there. As a coach I have no patients with people who don't want to practice but I deal with high schoolers they should know better. I think that part of the problem with kids like her is that they started at 8. I mean yeah get the basics down but give em a break, they should be playing with barbies and doing kid stuff, yeah play ball have fun but that is what it needs to be FUN!!!!!!! Maybe she is losing interest but doesn't want to disappoint dad. Don't let her know that you are disappointed in her thats just a hit to a kid. She is more sensitive than you think about all of this and there may be an underlying problem, like she is afraid of not doing well, who knows.