Help, I'm ruining dd's love of the game!

Oh my, I have stood up and literally kicked the bucket before out of frustration from my daughter's mouth during our practices.

I know the pain. Basically I sit on my low chair and call pitches for her. She does not connect or do them correctly, I say nothing because she already knows. If she repeats the same problem over and over, all I will say is think about your basic mechanics to a good pitch. Then call a simple strike over the plate. Let her connect a few of those and move on to next pitch. I have learned to try to keep a smile on her face with little one liners or come visit her in the circle and tell her a funny story. This has taken months to get here but now she comes to me about practicing. She also ask for advice when she does it wrong or tells me we got to go see the pitching coach.

Remember back off a little and let the child be a child. She started because it was fun not a job that she despises....save that for adulthood.

John Michael Kelly said:

As an 18 Gold travel coach in SoCal and father of a former pitcher the sooner you can remove yourself from the day to day process of her development the better it will be for her. The father- daughter dynamic is just too hard for her. She desperately wants to please you but daughters tend to start their rebellion phase sooner than boys. My daughter never understood that my comments and critiques were intended to help her. She only saw dad nagging her. If she loves the game and loves pitching get her a top notch pitching coach...get her into a top notch travel organization and let go! They will be the best decisions you ever make!!

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This is true in many cases, other cases it is not. It can have to do with how the dad and daughter relate to one another in all areas. For sure if she doesn't respond well to you then step out of the coaching picture. It can work though...

Think Jenny Finch and dad Doug

Angela Titchner and her dad Denny

Sarah Pauly and dad Rick

A lot of great advice in this thread!

For me, I have two daughters who pitch. There was a time I found them shying away from practicing
with me. I self-evaluated and realized that I was making it an unpleasant experience for them with
my criticism (I thought, "advice"), my frustration with their performance, etc.

Solution: I backed off and am, mostly, let other people coach my daughters. I still do catch for them
but my advice is much, more less and, hence, better. I encourage and compliment. I support them.
Pitching IS easily the hardest thing to do in fastpitch softball. They need your support more than
your criticism--I mean advice.

The Result: They love softball! All day in school they dream of getting out and playing softball. They pester
me to practice with them. Yesterday my younger daughter had a practice with the school team and her
travel team. She loved it! My older daughter dragged me out to tune up her pitches for her game today.

The best advice: Back off and let them enjoy it. You'll enjoy it more, as well. I'm getting kind of old so I
hope that I can keep up with all of their softball demands on me. I'll try my best.

Thanks everyone! Great advice from all of you. We sat down and discussed our practice sessions. Talked about what we like and dont like when we practice. (Probably should have done that earlier) she is a lot more grown up than I think. She understands the amount of reps she needs and truly wants to get better. She plays travel and rec ball still, rec being mainly for pitching reps. We decided our time together will be just that. We will still get our reps together, and I will help if she asks. Otherwise, it's just the two of us playing ball. Now if I could get her 10u sister/catcher to catch for her that would solve a lot. But, that's a problem for another time. Thanks again.

I have read this thread and took note of how many said turn them over to coach and I agree with concept but see a problem that I think is quite common. As discussed frequently on here IR is the way to go, no HE, most coaches dont teach IR, etc. I have learned the IR concept on this site as many others have yet in my area most still teach HE. Funds and time are restrictions to find available top notch pitching coach. While a good coach would by far be better for my DD development she is stuck with me and advice from this board. Last two sessions have been a step backwards. Speed up accuracy down so I'm on hear reading and staying positive she can work thru it and come out better. I have learned also like others to keep it positive. Best thing I have down is to let her call the pitch and was surprised how many times she called it till she hit that spot.

Origanal post brought a smile to my face, as I have never been a bucket dad who could keep my mouth shut. When my dd was around 10 years old, my wife would come out of the house and yell at both of us because we were arguing so much. Then it got to the point that when we went pitching, my wife would have to give us rules of how to act around each other. My wife would tell me that I couldn't make the disappointed face when my dd didn't throw a perfect pitch. My wife would tell my dd that she couldn't yell at her dad and tell him to shut up.

I liked the suggestion of gettting some head phones and just letting her pitch. I have never tried that, but it sounds like some good advice. I have discovered over the years that having my dd practice pitching in public places from time to time makes pitching fun. We practice in the public parks next to the frisbee throwers, before college softball games that we go to watch and next to the bull pen at the boys legion and semi pro baseball games. We never get into arguments in public, and pitching under the lights with people walking by and a ball game going on, breaks up the monotony of pitching practice and lets us take breaks and talk about baseball/softball strategy, pitch selection, baserunning agressiveness etc.

I enjoy the time I spent with my dd. Last night we attended a 14U rec pitching practice with my dd. She gave a pitching demonstration and talked with the girls. We watched them pitch and gave little pointers here and there. They asked her how she was able to hit her spots, etc. and she told them that she practiced a lot. She threw five fastballs with her eyes closed right down the middle of the plate. She talked a little about brush interference and the power line.

After we left, she started joking about some of the bucket dad catchers and their comments to their kids. Comments like, "Lose the attitude or we are going home, throw it right, or focus." I looked at her and said, "Yeah, it sure is funnier when it is someone else's bucket dad yelling at their dd." We went and grabbed dinner and then it was off to the softball field where I proceeded to make funny faces and my dd started to tell me to shut up.


Please don't tell my dw.

My DD is 14 and is a pretty dominant travel ball player. She has a pitching coach, and I usually catch for her while her pitching coach works on different pitches/techniques with her. One thing I have learned (at least with my daughter) that works is to hold off on being critical. When we practice on our own before games, if she throws a bad pitch, I usually joke with her and tell her that those bad pitches are between her and I and not her team or coach. I tell her to get the 'bad pitches' out of her system because that is what practicing is all about. I also try to 'coach' instead of 'tell' - 'how did that pitch work for you?'....'what do you need to do to correct that last one?' (ie. let her 'own it'). I find that she is open to practicing 2-3 times a week in the off-season and it has really helped prepare her for this season (0 earned runs in her first 3 games, throwing at 55 mph radared)

It also helps that she is nearly 6 ft tall with long legs/arms and long fingers

Your story sounds exactly like me my dd was that age. I think its a phase. It was dad harping at her, (in her mind), rather than me trying to get her to do what the PC said etc...
Remember Hillhouse's famous quote here, "practice makes permanent" if she not going to listen to corrections while she practices with you, her fundamentals will suffer.

jose.garcia said:

It also helps that she is nearly 6 ft tall with long legs/arms and long fingers

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Try and coach that!!

Went through this with hitting. Now I only open my mouth to ask questions and take ubersense video on the ipad. Very easy to get coach to ask how much she practices every time she goes in too.