Seeing your kids’ baseball skills improve thanks to your coaching and time spent with them can be very rewarding and seeing the beaming faces fresh off a win on the field can be even more so. Taking on the role of coach comes with some challenges though, so here are some tips on getting the most out of your baseball coaching sessions with your kids.
Free Yourself from Pitching
Many coaching sessions inevitably mean that you’re going to spend most of the time pitching the ball to your kids. While this might seem fine that this is your role in these practices, you’re not doing them any favors for two reasons. The first is simply that you might not be the best pitcher, and you’re not pushing your kids enough. The second is that if you spend your training sessions pitching the ball, you’re going to miss out on valuable opportunities to coach them and get closer to them to better see their stance, technique, and small nuances of how they play.
Instead, make the investment of purchasing one of the many types of pitching machines for sale online. It frees you up to be a more hands-on coach, and it means that your kids will face more consistent and useful pitches during their batting practice. It also means that they can even practice when you’re not available.
Get Them Moving
It’s important as you coach your kids to not only make sure they get time to practice baseball fundamentals, but they also put in the time and effort in getting stronger and fitter too. Spend some time at the start and end of your practice sessions improving strength, flexibility, and overall cardiovascular fitness. This will improve their ability to train harder and learn more when it comes to the more technical side of baseball skills coaching.
Avoid the Car Ride Coaching Session
If you’re driving your kid to or from baseball practice or a baseball game, try and avoid trying to coach them during this drive. You want to encourage, hype up or support your kids before and after games.
If you’re driving to a game, try not try to give them last-minute tips because this will increase the pressure on them to perform, or confuse them. If you’re driving home from a game, don’t be critical of their performance, but rather celebrate the things they did well. Kids need their parents to be supportive and encouraging right before and after their games, especially if they didn’t play their best, they’re playing a difficult opponent, or their team lost. Instead, keep the coaching and advice for the next time you’re training or practicing together. You can more casually mention things you saw that they might do differently during these practices when there aren’t strong emotions involved.
Be Positive, Always
Coaching your child can often feel like a balancing act. You must strike that balance between being tough and pushing your kids to be the best they can be and still be able to keep practices and training sessions fun and positive. You’re not only there to help your kids get better at baseball, but you’re also there to be a role model on how to be a good sport and practice good sportsmanship. This means that the environment you create during practices should always be positive and encouraging. You might need to fight your natural instincts to achieve this, but it’s necessary to get the most from your baseball practices.
When it comes to coaching your kids in baseball, you must be both a father and a coach, so work hard on getting that balance just right and you’ll get more from your kids on the field and off.