My dd has a disease right now. Its called "teenager" Its horrible right now. Hopefully you dont become a victim.
Wait until she gets the boys disease.
My dd has a disease right now. Its called "teenager" Its horrible right now. Hopefully you dont become a victim.
Wait until she gets the boys disease.
What does it mean to push? What's the difference between pushing and encouraging?
One parent will say 'I don't push,' and then say, 'All I do is require that she practice 3x/week if I'm going to pay for lessons.' Is that pushing? Or is it pushing to say, 'Hey, what do you say I throw you some front toss today?'
My quick thoughts on the OP -
1. All kids are different. Some kids apparently are so driven that they're begging you to sit on the bucket so they can pitch. They're running the show. Others would never have become college players if not for their parents' passion for the game at a time before they were that into it. My DD was the latter. She played travel ball for a few years largely because of me. I didn't make her play, and she liked it, but she didn't love it, and she never asked if I would go hit her some round balls or throw front toss. I invited her to do those things and made it fun enough to keep her going, and eventually she got better at it and began to think, 'Hmm, this is kinda fun. I want to play in college.' And she's currently committed to do that.
2. I wouldn't take an 11-year-old's declaration about college softball too literally. An 11-year-old really doesn't know whether she's going to like college softball, or what it is really, nor can she really know if she'll enjoy the next 6 years of hard work required to get there. So rather than hearing this as ''DD just made an important life's decision, what are our steps toward helping her live her dream,'' I'd just hear it as, ''I really like softball. It's fun.' That's my thing right now'' and find ways to nurture that love of the game. That might mean a higher level team, a private coach, things that she'd get excited about. But I'd stop short of thinking you're on the 7-year plan. Too early for that, IMO.
Well I'm not going to be PC and say I didn't push my DD because I most definitely did. Many tears were shed along the way and I would redo some of the things that I did. I'm a firm believer that 99% of successful athletes are that way because of being pushed.
The amount of sacrifice it takes from the entire family for a kid to reach that level is enormous.
I did learn now to put my "dad" hat on and take off the coach hat more as the years passed but I still bust my DD chops now when warranted. I love our journey and I do wish I would've enjoyed our time together more than just focusin on how she could've done better.
She wrote me a great letter before I dropped her off at college and it's something I'll take with me to my grave.