Do we need a sports psychologist?

[KPower]

I am about to lose my mind with DD. I know this is her game but she is selling herself short and hurting her team in the process.

Background...she plays on one of the best teams in our area for her age group. She has been lead off batter (for 2 different coaches) since the day she decided to play TB. She was the only freshman on her HS varsity team last year (only her and 5 juniors and 5 seniors). She batted 2nd all season. She is kind of a slapper... what do I mean by that? She doesn’t usually soft slap...she can lay down a bunt and she can hard slap or power slap and she can seriously place the ball so well. Everyone comments on how well she reads the defense and knows exactly where to place it. She can bloop it between infield and outfield, she can send it over the OF...she can pull it right or put it down the LF line. She slaps the ball hard enough to force errors too. Her avg and OBP were great.


This year in HS she is lead off. She refuses to slap. She wants to hit away. And it is not working for her at all. Last night she hit 2 times and popped up 2 times. Slapped once and hit a triple to the left center fence. And then goes right back to trying to hit and pops up. He coach tells her to do what she wants. Her coach is only familiar with soft and chop slaps. I told her - your job is to set the tone and get on base. It doesn’t matter how...her club coach came to watch her play and was so confused. Said she isn’t the player he knows. Her team is almost all sophomores this year. Her same age - and they were all JV last year. Not sure why she is acting this way...

She is in her head and I don’t know how to get her out. She is frustrated and wants to talk about everything but then yells at me if I offer a suggestion. I am no expert- I just know what I see...the pitching in HS is not better than what she sees in club - maybe worse at times.


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[texasheat]

I can't envision a scenario where softball is important enough to warrant a sports psychologist. There is so much else to life as a young kid.. Softball shouldn't define them.

 

[KPower]

See - that’s the problem. She is so wrapped up in her performance and it is running over into other areas of her life. Or maybe this is just how her stress is manifesting itself. She is a total perfectionist and making herself (and me) crazy! This is all new too...not the perfectionism but the way she is handling (or not handling) it.


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[texasheat]

See - that’s the problem. She is so wrapped up in her performance and it is running over into other areas of her life. Or maybe this is just how her stress is manifesting itself. She is a total perfectionist and making herself (and me) crazy! This is all new too...not the perfectionism but the way she is handling (or not handling) it.


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I would stress to her that softball is not that important. I would do that by example. Why don;t you try going 2 weeks without saying a word about softball and see what happens.

 

[KPower]

I would stress to her that softball is not that important. I would do that by example. Why don;t you try going 2 weeks without saying a word about softball and see what happens.

I actually don’t initiate any softball talk with her - made that a priority back in 12s when we were on a crazy team with loony parents who would yell at their kids all game long. We decided she had to be the one to start softball conversations. The exception “grab your bat - you have a hitting lesson”. But when she initiates it I feel like if I won’t talk to her she will take that as me being mad at her. 15 year old girls are difficult! And I was one once! I just want her to have fun again...

Last night after her not so great game we got home at 10:45pm (she had an 8 pm game and the coach talks to them forever) she bawled the entire way home and then instead of going to bed went and hit off the tee for an hour. In her sheer exhaustion.


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[GoRight]

I know what you are going through. My daughter has always been a power hitter. She has hit slumps before and gotten through them. She is now (hopefully) coming off a slump that started in last high school season (we are Spring) and lasted through the summer TB season. She had her mental breakdowns and all. The last one she swore to herself that she is pushing out all negative thoughts and focusing on “I Can.” I will say her coach wasn’t the best for support. The bottom line is I told her “softball is a game, it’s supposed to be fun. It really is ok to walk away when it’s not fun anymore.” She said “it matters to me though”. I said then you have to make it fun again. I think that got through. Plus a lot of support from her hitting coach.


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[texasheat]

I actually don’t initiate any softball talk with her - made that a priority back in 12s when we were on a crazy team with loony parents who would yell at their kids all game long. We decided she had to be the one to start softball conversations. The exception “grab your bat - you have a hitting lesson”. But when she initiates it I feel like if I won’t talk to her she will take that as me being mad at her. 15 year old girls are difficult! And I was one once! I just want her to have fun again...

Last night after her not so great game we got home at 10:45pm (she had an 8 pm game and the coach talks to them forever) she bawled the entire way home and then instead of going to bed went and hit off the tee for an hour. In her sheer exhaustion.


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2 Weeks. Not a word about softball. Even if she initiates. Tell her y'all are taking a break from discussing it. Try it. But I'll add, if you are worried about her thinking you're "mad at her" if you don't talk about it, then all bets are off. She has you where she wants you.

 

[murphdog]

My DD is her own biggest critic. She will beat herself up worse than anyone else can. Usually I wait for her to bring it up.
I just reinforce that we love her and are proud of her and let her work through it.
She’s 19 now and significantly more sensible about things now.
Teenage girls are ridiculously hard to understand and I was one once myself

 

[CMMom1740]

I would say to shake up the system a little and maybe take her for a lesson with a different hitting coach. Maybe one of your teammates has someone she could see just to get a different perspective than what she's used to.

 

[KPower]

I would say to shake up the system a little and maybe take her for a lesson with a different hitting coach. Maybe one of your teammates has someone she could see just to get a different perspective than what she's used to.

Ha - so that kind of happened anyway - not by choice. She has been seeing the same hitting coach for 5 years. He has done amazing things for her and was like a therapist during her hitting lessons. She adored him. And then one day he sent out an email and told everyone he was moving 1/2 way across the country that Friday. No more lessons. She was crushed.

She decided to try out a hitting coach who a lot of her teammates see. They all hit well. He told her she has no business slapping and that he really doesn't believe it is relevant anymore. He said she is strong enough to hit for power. I agree that she is strong enough...but slapping gives her more options at the plate, and she loves mixing things up in TB. She has by far the highest avg and obp on her TB team. She can place the ball...not just dribble a little soft slap. She is way more versatile than that. I think he didn't want to mess up his well oiled machine...he has 3 girls in each 30 minute time slot. One hitting off a tee, one hitting soft toss and one hitting front toss and he just wanders around and offers pointers. I think he doesn't want to work with something "different". So he wasn't the right coach for DD. She said that the minute we walked out the door.

So she gave this other highly recommended coach a try. She was a slapper in college (D1) and both her daughters were D1 slappers as well. She told DD "I want you to have 10 options at every at bat". She is tweaking things just a little bit because she was pretty impressed at where DD was...so during DD's lesson all they work on is slapping.

But...come game day in HS all DD does is try to hit away. She isn't terrible...but she is capable of so much more. She knows it too. She is mad because her contact point is too far out in front, or she drops her hands...she never strikes out...always makes contact but lately has just been popping out. Today she had one nice hit, one foul pop out and one dinky ground ball. She is losing power by not slapping, she is not using her hips and trying to muscle the ball with her skinny little arms. I just think she has nothing to lose and everything to gain by mixing in a few slaps here and there.

She says "she's scared". That what she said to me today as soon as the game was over.

Her coach is intense...I don't know if I can even begin to give you an idea of how intense, but they lost 2 practices balls over the past 2 days...the practice balls are numbered. they lost 54 and 3. Now they run 57 poles. They practice on Monday because of their performance this weekend. 4 hours. I get that the coach is intimidating, but she put DD as lead off for a reason. To get on base. DD's job is to find a way. Any way. (BTW - as intense as this coach is....DD loves the tough practices and long hours - she doesn't always love the yelling and punishments...ha!)

If I were DD I would be more afraid of getting out, than slapping to get on! (I haven't said that to DD - haha!)