How to raise a circle princess

Dave619 · Oct 21, 2014

We have a girl in our state that we see frequently at tournaments. Girls on other teams know her because of her behavior. She is probably about 13, talk to her father either in "baby talk" or like he is dirt. I know she is on her second team this year. The last time we watched her pitch she gave up a hard shot to left field in a close game. The ball took a bad bounce and LF missed it. This diva came off of the field after the 3rd out, walked out to the stands area and started yelling at her father about the other players and how ridiculous it was that the LF missed the ball. The father just looked at her and mumbled something.

She then went into the dugout and stood in the corner with her arms folded and her lips pushed out. I looked at my DD and said, "If you ever acted like that...", then DD cut me off and said you don't have to worry about that and started laughing.

I feel sorry for this girl. She is a good pitcher, but probably won't make it with her attitude. She reminds me of the girl from Willie Wonka and the father just tries to buy her everything to make her happy. Sad situation!

Jojo · Oct 21, 2014

Amy in AZ. said:
I know a girl that is 10 and has been attempting to pitch travel ball, with what is probably a broken toe on her left foot. The problem has been going on 3 months. This one isn't the girl's fault though, the folks won't take her to the doctor.

The worse I ever saw was a girl (12u) who had a cast on her pitching arm. Her parents cut the cast off so she could pitch then taped it back on after the games, I saw her at two different tournaments this way.

Jojo · Oct 21, 2014

PapaPump said:
I feel sorry for this girl. She is a good pitcher, but probably won't make it with her attitude. She reminds me of the girl from Willie Wonka and the father just tries to buy her everything to make her happy. Sad situation!

I have one of these, she is 13, and still talks baby talk. She throws tantrums all the time to get her way.
I feel sorry for her more than just in sports, I feel sorry for her that life itself may be very disappointing to her if her dad cannot be there every time something bad happens and he cannot bail her out.

okie · Oct 21, 2014

Do any of you tend to go towards the extreme opposite?

I've coached my DDs softball, basketball and soccer teams since she was 4 (now 10) and she thinks im much harder on her than anyone else. My lineups are pretty simple, my first 3 batters are my highest on base percentage girls (lets start off well). Then from that point i go strong hitter, weaker hitter and alternate all the way through the lineup. Normally my DD hits 3rd or 4th as she is the power hitter on the team but has a tendency to go hot/cold (some days shes your classic Jose Canseco, its either to the fence or a strikeout). In a recent tournament where she went 0/3 in the first game, i slid her down to 8th for the second game and she quickly pointed out that other girls are usually allowed 2 or 3 games before they are moved. The move actually worked out as she went 2/2 with a HR and double and the bottom of our lineup was very productive....she doesnt see it that way though.

It did however get me to thinking, i do hold her to a higher standard than most of the girls. The question is though, do we tend to do this because we actually hold our own DDs to a higher standard or because we want to make sure the other parents see that our own DDs are held to at least the same standard as theirs? Thats a question i havent figured out yet.

dbronstein · Oct 21, 2014

Jojo said:
The worse I ever saw was a girl (12u) who had a cast on her pitching arm. Her parents cut the cast off so she could pitch then taped it back on after the games, I saw her at two different tournaments this way.

That's even worse than the girl I saw who had a broken pinky and her mother had the dr. splint it instead of cast it so she could take the splint off to pitch.

Eric F · Oct 21, 2014

okie said:
It did however get me to thinking, i do hold her to a higher standard than most of the girls. The question is though, do we tend to do this because we actually hold our own DDs to a higher standard or because we want to make sure the other parents see that our own DDs are held to at least the same standard as theirs? Thats a question i havent figured out yet.

I tend towards this ^ as well. Not dramatically, but it's there.

dbronstein · Oct 21, 2014

okie said:
It did however get me to thinking, i do hold her to a higher standard than most of the girls. The question is though, do we tend to do this because we actually hold our own DDs to a higher standard or because we want to make sure the other parents see that our own DDs are held to at least the same standard as theirs? Thats a question i havent figured out yet.

I've thought about this as well. My theory is because we play/practice with our kids all the time so we know what they are capable of. So when they make a bad play, we get more frustrated than if another player did the same thing, because we've seen our kids make the play 100 times in the backyard.

Mom_Coach_Fan · Oct 21, 2014

okie said:
Do any of you tend to go towards the extreme opposite?

I've coached my DDs softball, basketball and soccer teams since she was 4 (now 10) and she thinks im much harder on her than anyone else. My lineups are pretty simple, my first 3 batters are my highest on base percentage girls (lets start off well). Then from that point i go strong hitter, weaker hitter and alternate all the way through the lineup. Normally my DD hits 3rd or 4th as she is the power hitter on the team but has a tendency to go hot/cold (some days shes your classic Jose Canseco, its either to the fence or a strikeout). In a recent tournament where she went 0/3 in the first game, i slid her down to 8th for the second game and she quickly pointed out that other girls are usually allowed 2 or 3 games before they are moved. The move actually worked out as she went 2/2 with a HR and double and the bottom of our lineup was very productive....she doesnt see it that way though.

It did however get me to thinking, i do hold her to a higher standard than most of the girls. The question is though, do we tend to do this because we actually hold our own DDs to a higher standard or because we want to make sure the other parents see that our own DDs are held to at least the same standard as theirs? Thats a question i havent figured out yet.

Excellent question and eager to follow responses. I do know I hold my daughter to a higher standard, likely to avoid the call of favoritism. Hard because on one of her teams, she is one of the better player and gets the majority of time at catcher and bats #3. While I have the stats to defend, it can be a challenging conversation with parents. (It seems to bother parents more than the girls on one of my DD teams.)

Jojo · Oct 21, 2014

okie said:
Do any of you tend to go towards the extreme opposite?

I've coached my DDs softball, basketball and soccer teams since she was 4 (now 10) and she thinks im much harder on her than anyone else. My lineups are pretty simple, my first 3 batters are my highest on base percentage girls (lets start off well). Then from that point i go strong hitter, weaker hitter and alternate all the way through the lineup. Normally my DD hits 3rd or 4th as she is the power hitter on the team but has a tendency to go hot/cold (some days shes your classic Jose Canseco, its either to the fence or a strikeout). In a recent tournament where she went 0/3 in the first game, i slid her down to 8th for the second game and she quickly pointed out that other girls are usually allowed 2 or 3 games before they are moved. The move actually worked out as she went 2/2 with a HR and double and the bottom of our lineup was very productive....she doesnt see it that way though.

It did however get me to thinking, i do hold her to a higher standard than most of the girls. The question is though, do we tend to do this because we actually hold our own DDs to a higher standard or because we want to make sure the other parents see that our own DDs are held to at least the same standard as theirs? Thats a question i havent figured out yet.

Okie, I struggled with my own DD when I coached her because I held her to higher standard than everyone else. As she got older, to be fair I relinquished my head coaching position to an assistant.
But even then I still held her to a higher standard. She fussed at me one day because I was the only that was being negative with her, and I explained that I had hoped when I turned her over to someone else, they would then be "bad cop" and I could finally get a chance to be "good cop". But that never happened, no one would ever be bad cop to her so that left me to do it. I was afraid that if everyone told her she was wonderful all the time, she'd stop trying to improve.
I didn't get to play good cop till college.

Merrill Danner · Oct 21, 2014

Unfortunately for my daughter I spent 14 years in the military, the entire time in the Infantry, I therefor have zero tolerance of emotion interfering with the game, that includes crying, tantrums or another behavior that is unbecoming of a player of her age. That being said, it breaks my hear inside when i have to tell her to suck it up and give it 100% or when i tell the coach it is time to pull her, yes, i know when she had reached her limit, and try and let her go past it but also know the team is there to win and I am willing to replace her at a moments notice in order assure a higher probability of winning. Though it hasn't always worked that way.

How to raise a circle princess

Welcome to Discuss Fastpitch

Your FREE Account is waiting to the Best Softball Community on the Web.

Dave619

Jojo

Jojo

okie

dbronstein

Eric F

dbronstein

Mom_Coach_Fan

Jojo

Merrill Danner

Relax and breathe!

Similar threads

Latest posts

Members online

Forum statistics

Share this page

Online statistics

Forum statistics