10YR Old Ready To Shut-it Down

[BobInMadison]

Just to remind people of something.

Not long ago some researchers at U of Wisconsin studied kids who play sports all year round.

Group A: kids who concentrate on one sport, and spend over 8 months a year on that one sport. Most of these kids play the same sport 12 months out of the year, which is often quite tough in Wisconsin winters.

Group B: kids who limit their main sport to 8 or fewer months per year on their main sport.

One of those groups had a significantly higher rate of sports injuries, even though both groups played sports at about the same rate.

I am having some of the same issues. I argued with DD 3 all year about how little she was practicing her pitching.
End result: she still pitched most innings for her team this past season. The other starter couldn't pitch for a couple of tournaments due to back problems. By the last game of the last tournament, neither girl could pitch her best.

Aside from pitching in 2 of her 3 tryouts, DD 3 is taking off the month of August. One tryout she couldn't pitch but was offered a spot.

Later today DD 3, and DD 2, have cross country practice. First meet Saturday. I'll let DD 3 wait until Fall Ball to pitch again.

Edit to add: DD 3 also had back issues this season, but not as serious as the team's other starter. This year both pitchers followed their coach to a new team, along with a third pitcher.

 

[Rocketech1]

Just to remind people of something.

Not long ago some researchers at U of Wisconsin studied kids who play sports all year round.

Group A: kids who concentrate on one sport, and spend over 8 months a year on that one sport. Most of these kids play the same sport 12 months out of the year, which is often quite tough in Wisconsin winters.

Group B: kids who limit their main sport to 8 or fewer months per year on their main sport.

One of those groups had a significantly higher rate of sports injuries, even though both groups played sports at about the same rate.

I am having some of the same issues. I argued with DD 3 all year about how little she was practicing her pitching.
End result: she still pitched most innings for her team this past season. The other starter couldn't pitch for a couple of tournaments due to back problems. By the last game of the last tournament, neither girl could pitch her best.

Aside from pitching in 2 of her 3 tryouts, DD 3 is taking off the month of August. One tryout she couldn't pitch but was offered a spot.

Later today DD 3, and DD 2, have cross country practice. First meet Saturday. I'll let DD 3 wait until Fall Ball to pitch again.

Edit to add: DD 3 also had back issues this season, but not as serious as the team's other starter. This year both pitchers followed their coach to a new team, along with a third pitcher.

I think this is a complex issue. For example, DD has played softball since she was 5YO (14YO now). Gave up dance and soccer at 10 to play softball year round (11 months). However, at school she has PE every day where they do a myriad of sports throughout the school year. In addition, her travel ball practices include a huge amount of cardio, crunches, burbees, sprints, and other conditioning excercises, skill work. She also goes to the gym twice a week to do running, elliptical, and some light free weights. Knock on wood, she has never been injured since she had been playing softball for almost 9 years. Maybe it will catch up to her later in life but she seems to be doing fine playing this game year round.

 

[tocullo]

Dont worry about it give her a break!!! She can take a year off and within a couple month be back stronger and fresh! Pitching is exhausting and at that age a long brake could be beneficial. Liza Fernandez started playing when she was 12yrs old and she was great. Go with the flow and enjoy the ride... Good luck!!!

 

[Strike]

A lot of great advise in this thread. My only addition has to with injury. A few years ago I found this site and did a lot of research on pitching because what initially was being taught to my daughter didn't seem correct to me. Hello elbow. Luckily I found what I was looking for here and since she hadn't been ingrained to the other style was able to make the switch ourselves. Unfortunately we still can't find anyone for her to take from so it's just us.

During this research I also read a good bit about injuries and researches done on the causes. Including one by Dr. James Andrews. His number one issue was overuse in pitchers. While mechanical flaws are a problem obviously, overuse was a much bigger concern. And it wasn't the one time big tournament where a pitchers throws 400-600 pitches. It was the week after week of practice at home, pitching lessons, 3 tournaments a month for 10 months a year that was his point. He recommended at least 8 weeks off a year from throwing. Overhand or underhand. He prefers 3-4 months off. So the last 2 years we have taken about a month off in summer and about 8 weeks off in the winter. Our practice at home is never more than 3 days a week and one of those days is a fun day where I do nothing but just catch her and work on what she wants to do (also helped our working together much better as well).

Without fail this is what happens every single time we take a break. First and most important, she gets her hunger back and can't wait to start back playing in just a few weeks. Secondly, she comes back faster every time. Maybe it's just a little bit but she is faster every time. After this summer she is pitching all of the JV games for her HS. She has jumped 3 mph (we believe by using the Pauley velocity distance drill) from when she stopped in July to when she started back 2 weeks ago. The last thing is she gets more accurate every time. At the end of her 12U TB season this summer her first pitch strikes was at 60% and 63% strikes on the season. Her first 4 games in JV this month, 69% fps and 73% strikes. After every break she has gotten faster, more accurate and her batteries are really charged. This is from a girl who just turned 13 so it's a big difference in age but not that far away from where you will be. And the first question I always ask after games and practices, did you have fun? They have to love it.


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[chinamigarden]

Hello All,
I am a heartbroken dad. My DD (10) said she was bored with softball and bored with pitching this weekend. I automatically went into negative mode, then as I was ranting to her realized she is probably just burnt out. She started pitching almost a year ago and has practiced 4-5 days per week nearly every week since (we have taken a few week long breaks). Plus the team practices and tourneys. Does anyone have any advise on how to keep her from going sour to softball? I'm not to proud to say some of this is probably because of me constantly pushing her. I force her at times to practice, but now regret it. I told her she needed to at least finish the fall season as we have already committed. I would hate to see her quit or even take an extended break as she has come a long way in a short time with pitching. I'm sure others have gone through this, so please share your experiences. Thanks TB

I wonder how she feels physically and mentally. Practicing 4-5 times per week plus playing games is a recipe for disaster. The number of chronic injuries you are courting is high. I would immediately cut her back to no more then 2 practices a week while she fulfills her commitment. At that point I would take a month off and see what she wants to do after the break. If after that break she still wants to play, 2-3 practices a week while not in season is plenty. My dd pitches. She was #1 10u,12u 14u, 16u, and HS. We never practiced 4 times a week always took several months off in the winter. She always Came back strong.

Someone here once said something that resonated with me. Who cares if she can't lift her arm high enough to brush her hair by the time she is 35. 10u softball is too important right now.

 

[BT3100]

I've been doing research of organizations for my DD. She's still 10u but when she reaches 14u I hope she is good enough to make the Chaos team.

DD has attended 2 workouts with this Organization and after watching them practice I can tell you there is a no doubt as to why their teams are excellent. Class organization all around!

 

[BT3100]

There are some great points on this thread. It should be a must read for all Softball parents. I agree with most who are saying you shouldn't push the kid to practice. However some kids (mine included until 2 years ago) are slow starters. What I mean by that is that the need a small kick in rear to get them to practice. Once they get started they are great. We all go through this. Think about mowing the lawn in the 95 degree heat We put it off until we must do it then we get it done.
As a parent it's our job to know the difference in our kids. Are they procrastinating or are they burned out. There is a fine line between the two. I love the point about not making it about you.. That's the hard part. We all start this journey as a spectator then it absorbs you to the point that you feel like you are part of the process. Miss a game? I can't Rain out? Devastating. That's when it's time to back it off.

 

[turnin2]

Amen... you have to make it fun for her.

Make pitching practice fun and limit it to 30mins, 3x a week. At this age, I have put a basketball set-up on a "T" at home plate and she had to hit it "x' number of times to move on to something else. Do pitch "sequences" where she can call her location and will
"strikeout" the imaginary batter (keep track of balls and strikes). Have her pitch to her teammates in batting practice and make a game of it.

Remind her that she made a commitment to the team and that her teammates are counting on her to complete this season with them. She can rest and reevaluate softball in the winter off-season.

BTW - My DD has been pitching for 7 years and I thought less is more (i.e. never pitch two days in a row practice unless absolutely necessary). Let the body and mind heal with practice only every other day.

 

[turnin2]

To the OP, I feel for you. I knew that could be my daughter after her first summer season. My wife and I know that our daughter would stop doing anything where she was constantly pushed. It's just her personality. We also know that she can walk away from softball at anytime. She likes to do many things. The only thing we can do is to make it fun for her. After she had a coach one summer at 8U, who liked to talk to the girls as if they were 18, we decided we had to control everything to keep it fun for her and her teammates. So I now make time to coach her.

Is your coach making her practice fun? Are you making her pitching practice fun? Coaching kids, to me, is a give and take. The only thing I know that motivates kids is competing against one another, working towards a goal or maybe some rewards every now and then. You have to be able to notice when you are losing your players at practice and move them into some type of competition against each other or getting the entire team working towards a common goal. One small example is we were doing a variation of the corners drill. The kids couldn't get passed 3 throws before throwing it away or missing the catch (10U). How do you get the kids focused to perform better? Do we make them run? Punish them? Yell at them? I had an assistant coach that would do that. He no longer coaches with me. I approach this by challenging the girls to pick a number that they could reach in performing the drill. You get some crazy answers. You pick a goal and challenge them to achieve it. Make it a game. Have a team record where they are always trying to best it. I also try to mix in competitions with the stuff that can get mundane like working situations. When we break the players into groups, we have contests to see which group gets the most points... things like that.

Some people might disagree with this, but I practically bribe my daughter to practice pitching. I create games for pitching practice where she can earn points. Each point is worth a quarter. She wants to save up for a laptop, so we created the Laptop fund. She writes down her points after every session. Sometimes she comes to me and says, I want to earn some points. Sometimes I say, wanna earn some points? She always smiles and usually says yes.

We set up a pole across the plate about knee high and I ask her spin the ball and make it drop right over it. We set up targets. I will put my glove at a spot and she has to hit the glove. If she misses I make a stupid sound and face to show she missed. She usually giggles. I don't know what else to do.

Is this going to keep her in the game for the long haul? I don't know. I can only try to speak her language and make it fun for her right now. We will see what happens.

There isn't anything that bothers me more than a coach or parent yelling or punishing young kids on the softball field. Don't get me wrong, you want to teach kids to be winners and I am all for winning and playing hard, but I am not going to beat down a bunch of little kids to get there. You can play hard and be serious and lift up kids along the way. Not tear them down constantly.

I have kids on my team that played on other teams where they placed top five & ten nationally. They hold 3 hour practices at 10U. How do you hold a practice for three hours? If your practice is organized and you keep them moving, you can get a lot done within one and a half hours or two hours.

These are a few things I try to do. I would love to hear what others are doing to try and make it fun. I need some fresh ideas.

Thanks.

 

[obbay]

Wow- long thread! Obviously a topic for which we all have something to say .

I want to add another vote for let her be a kid, too much of one sport can lead to repetitive use injuries. at her age if she doesn't play other sports, she should or at least have other interests. don't push too much, while being a good teammate is important, don't be concerned so much with what's best for the team at the expense of what's best for her in the long run. I had my DD suck it up too many times in middle school and be a good teammate when the team and coach were not worth it. she missed opportunities and that is why basketball is no longer in the mix.

someone here once posted about their kid being in the 10U State championship or something, and I said something like "10U?? are you kidding?" I didn't mean it as a derogatory, critical comment. Instead it was more of a knee-jerk response because I don't see how(and why) kids at that age bracket are pushed to compete in "championships" that, while important at the time(and possibly even fun) are not important enough to take them away from experiencing other things. a natural part of childhood and the experience of being human.

when both of My DDs were 10 and under, they played Soccer, basketball, gymnastics and competitive figure skating in addition to softball. (Figure skating coaches REALLY don't get the concept of having anything else to do but their sport!) When the youngest was 10, she had trouble sleeping at night because she didn't know whether she wanted to play Basketball or Softball in college! one by one, the other sports fell by the wayside, partly due to time constraints. they thoroughly enjoyed those other sports so it was always sad when we had to let one go. 2x my wife and I took advantage of a broken bone as an excuse to drop one of the sports that WE wanted our DD to drop.

A Friend of mine and fellow coach has a DD who decided in her sophomore year of High school that she was done with TB and Pitching. She would continue to play HS ball, but would never pitch again and would not play SB in college. that's how she spent every weekend, every summer from U12 thru U16 and she was done (I think some resentment had built up too). In her early 20's now, she has never coached younger kids or had any more involvement except to attend some of her little sister's games.

In the end, it is a marathon and it's not whether you win or lose, but it really is about how you play the game. think less in terms of building her a career and more about building her a great life, in which softball is a part.