Keeping her out of her head

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Oct 5, 2021
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Hey everyone my DD is an 11u catcher and has played 2 years travel and multiple years of LL along with lessons and is becoming a solid catcher. However she is her own worst critic and struggles to move on from a mistake and bounce back or shake off a rough game. Anyone have any suggestions on helping to keep her out of her head?


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Nov 20, 2020
995
93
SW Missouri
The answer is easy. But the process and application can be difficult. You have to help her understand mistakes happen, are a part of learning, and that no one cares about them as much as she does. Everyone makes mistakes. Youth players to the elite athlete. How you convey that has to be in a way SHE can hear it and accept it.

Mistakes are normal. Mistakes are unavoidable. Getting a youth athlete to understand that is often difficult.
 
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Oct 3, 2011
3,478
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Right Here For Now
To expand on HunterMO's post, the old adage of " practice makes perfect," doesn't happen as there are no perfect practices. The only thing they can control is their attitude and effort. If they give 100% of effort, then they have zero reason to have a negative attitude since they've done everything they had to give at that particular time. It comes down to you helping your DD understand that.
 
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May 6, 2015
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113
try this quote from the greatest team sport coach of all time on how to handle mistakes:

-recognize it
-admit it
-learn from it
-forget it

also, tell her to remember, you learn much more from failure than you do from success
 
Sep 28, 2020
41
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NJ
Both my DDs struggled with this and as a coach I see it all of the time. My oldest has gotten through it and my youngest seems to be turning the corner, but it it took a lot of discussions and repeated reinforcement that mistakes as Hunter said are just part of the learning process. I constantly preach to them that you can’t be afraid to make mistakes. I’ve taught my girls to ask themselves and answer honestly what went wrong, why it happened and what they need to do to get better. Emotions get in the way of answering that first questions which means you can’t get to the second or third. It’s natural to get frustrated/upset but they need to learn to move past the emotions quickly. Asking those questions in my girls cases helped them to depersonalize the mistakes and move on.

I found it useful to reflect on their improvement regularly. They often couldn’t see the incremental steps they were making to get better so I looked for opportunities to point out when they made plays that they may have struggled with in the past.
 
May 6, 2015
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an attitude I have tried to instill in young athletes is "PLAY FEARLESS" (yes, you shout it, so all caps)"

go for the diving catch
try for that extra base
pitcher go at that hitter who rung you up a week ago
go for that iffy outfield assist at HP

it is much easier to get players to dial back aggressive play than it is to instill it later on.

you have to trip over that line between just right and way too much a bunch to learn where it is precisely . . . and athletes need to learn to live on that line.
 
Oct 14, 2020
109
28
Hey everyone my DD is an 11u catcher and has played 2 years travel and multiple years of LL along with lessons and is becoming a solid catcher. However she is her own worst critic and struggles to move on from a mistake and bounce back or shake off a rough game. Anyone have any suggestions on helping to keep her out of her head?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
I agree with the above recommendations, but one thing that really unlocked my daughter's confidence catching was to practice all the crazy stuff at practice. Trying to throw behind runners, trying to throw out the lead runner on a bunt, sliding around by the backstop to try to get the runner from third on a passed ball, diving to catch a popped up bunt, all those things. They learn to laugh at things when they do something ridiculous (it honestly helps if coaches recognize this and laugh too) and more importantly do the "play after the play."
 
Jun 8, 2016
16,118
113
I had this problem, it never went away and only got worse as I got older. Kudos on recognizing it and trying to remedy it before it is too late and it sucks out all the fun of the game for her. I will say my father did try to help but nothing worked..hopefully you are more successful. Good luck.
 
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Aug 23, 2016
359
43
an attitude I have tried to instill in young athletes is "PLAY FEARLESS" (yes, you shout it, so all caps)"

go for the diving catch
try for that extra base
pitcher go at that hitter who rung you up a week ago
go for that iffy outfield assist at HP

it is much easier to get players to dial back aggressive play than it is to instill it later on.

you have to trip over that line between just right and way too much a bunch to learn where it is precisely . . . and athletes need to learn to live on that line.

This is so important!

DD is now on a team whose coaches want the girls to take chances, especially in practice where nothing hurts if you can't make the play.

While they still make plenty of mistakes, they're a lot more confident about attempting plays in games because they test their limits in practice.
 

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