Reasons Not to Scream at Kids

[Solo]

I could be coming from left field. But I was thinking of reasons not to scream at kids especially when they are hitting:

1. If you scream at them when they are hitting and you try to correct their ways in front of other people, they are no longer the ones batting in my opinion. YOU are the one batting.

So, the kids, I think, feel if they fail, it's their fault. But, if they get a hit, it's their coach or dad who did it.

On the other hand, if you leave the kids alone when they are batting, i.e. you don't scream at them, they know that if they get a hit, they are the ones who get the credit and not their coach or dad.

Any thoughts! am I nuts?@*&*(

[CoachB25]

I could be coming from left field. But I was thinking of reasons not to scream at kids especially when they are hitting:

1. If you scream at them when they are hitting and you try to correct their ways in front of other people, they are no longer the ones batting in my opinion. YOU are the one batting.

So, the kids, I think, feel if they fail, it's their fault. But, if they get a hit, it's their coach or dad who did it.

On the other hand, if you leave the kids alone when they are batting, i.e. you don't scream at them, they know that if they get a hit, they are the ones who get the credit and not their coach or dad.

Any thoughts! am I nuts?@*&*(

Yelling any hitting thoughts to the hitter by a coach et.al. serves no positive purpose here if it is anything other than positive encouragement. JMHO!

[Go Cardinals]

Your not in a fierce competition, so what's the point?

keep a happy enviroment, you can wait until they come back

[Jake Patterson]

Yelling any hitting thoughts to the hitter by a coach et.al. serves no positive purpose here if it is anything other than positive encouragement. JMHO!
Could not agree more...

[coops]

First off let me say SCREAMing at a kid while they are batting serves no purpose what so ever. However... I have had good success with asking a kid to step out of the battersbox and then explaining to them something they are doing wrong. Please understand I am not attempting to necessarily fix anything at that moment but instead I am trying to divert their fear of striking out to something more positive.

We also make it a point to never tell a player that they shouldn’t have swung at a pitch regardless of how high or low the pitch was. We make it a point of teach our kids their strike zone but we do not want them to be scared of swinging the bat.

Now if I could only get my parents to stop coaching from the stands.

Coop

[TG Coach]

A coach can't teach a hitter how to hit from the coach's box or dugout. At most, it should be one cue to correct a fault from the previous swing, assuming it's something you've been working on so he understands. Otherwise, be a cheerleader.

[Baseball gLove]

I know a coach that would yell at 11 year old kids if they knocked down a ground ball and threw out the runner. After no time at, all his kids were afraid to try to make plays because they might get yelled at. My opinion is an ugly out is still an out. My son's range expanded greatly because he is not afraid.

[Solo]

I am glad to see that most of the people/coaches responding here do not believe in yelling at kids while hitting or doing anything else.

Unfortunately, I have seen many coaches/dads screaming or making gestures to their kids during games.

I am glad to see it is not as pervasive as I thought.

[Solo]

Your not in a fierce competition, so what's the point?

keep a happy enviroment, you can wait until they come back

I agree with the comment above. I have witnessed the screaming coming from other people.

[dm59]

As Go Cardinals has in his "signature" area:

"You can't think and hit at the same time" - Yogi Berra

There's wisdom in there.

[BoardMember]

I happen to think there is a huge difference between aggresively yelling AT kids and aggressively yelling TO kids.

I feel most coaches and parents don't know the difference.

I yell aggresively TO my players all the time. And sometimes I think they need to know when they aren't using 100% of their own resources and concentration and readyness.

Yelling encouraging reinforcement such as "Win this battle Danny!"

And "Don't let this bunter beat you kid!"

Or one of my all time favorites to my hitters facing good pitching: "REFUSE TO BE AN OUT!".

I think aggressive reinforcement works wonders. I've often been heard yelling TO a player whose just made a physical or mental error but is still on the field: "Danny, I've seen you at your best!", "Show me that KID again!".

Just some food for thought.........:dance

I could be coming from left field. But I was thinking of reasons not to scream at kids especially when they are hitting:

1. If you scream at them when they are hitting and you try to correct their ways in front of other people, they are no longer the ones batting in my opinion. YOU are the one batting.

So, the kids, I think, feel if they fail, it's their fault. But, if they get a hit, it's their coach or dad who did it.

On the other hand, if you leave the kids alone when they are batting, i.e. you don't scream at them, they know that if they get a hit, they are the ones who get the credit and not their coach or dad.

Any thoughts! am I nuts?@*&*(

[GFK]

I like BM's idea of yelling to the kids to pump them up.

On the other side of the coin, yelling out a laundry list of mechanics tweaks will more often than not, send them into the weeds.

For anyone that is interested, do a search for "Explicit Monitoring Theories of Choking".

[Jake Patterson]

I like BM's idea of yelling to the kids to pump them up.
On the other side of the coin, yelling out a laundry list of mechanics tweaks will more often than not, send them into the weeds.
For anyone that is interested, do a search for "Explicit Monitoring Theories of Choking".
I think we all can agree yelling TO and AT is different. Yelling AT is never acceptable.

Yelling TO can vary in scale from appropriate positive reinforcement to utter distraction.

[NJMetfan4life]

In my experience, I block out my coaches, and focus on what I'm doing. It puts me on the spot, and I can't stand it.

[RayR]

Wait a minute. You mean yelling at your players doesn't help them? Somebody better tell a lot of folks that they been doing it wrong all this time.

[TG Coach]

I happen to think there is a huge difference between aggresively yelling AT kids and aggressively yelling TO kids.

I feel most coaches and parents don't know the difference.

I yell aggresively TO my players all the time. And sometimes I think they need to know when they aren't using 100% of their own resources and concentration and readyness.

Yelling encouraging reinforcement such as "Win this battle Danny!"

And "Don't let this bunter beat you kid!"

Or one of my all time favorites to my hitters facing good pitching: "REFUSE TO BE AN OUT!".

I think aggressive reinforcement works wonders. I've often been heard yelling TO a player whose just made a physical or mental error but is still on the field: "Danny, I've seen you at your best!", "Show me that KID again!".

Just some food for thought.........:dance

You're being a cheerleader. That's positive and not confusing.

[Jake Patterson]

You're being a cheerleader. That's positive and not confusing.
We've all seen some positive over the top cheerleading coaches and parents.

"Mom, would you please stop! You're embarrassing me!" (Jake -2007 Season)

[BoardMember]

I definately wouldn't put my self in the catergory of the cheerleader coach....

When I coach, I feel I have a specific mission to accomplish with every player by season's end. That mission is NOT to win games. Winning games is a byproduct of many other dynamics.

Sure, there is all the usual stuff coaches are charged with, including team dynamics, skills development, building self confidence and self esteem, teaching kids to work in a team environment, teaching kids to take responsibility for themselves, and their teammates, and the life-skill list goes on and on.........

However, the most important mission for me is to make each and ever player understand that there is ANOTHER LEVEL within all of us that is un-tapped until we learn to un-lock the mental code to that level.

Unlocking that code is my goal with every one of my players, regardless of skill level. I explain this to my parents and players from day one in a meeting.

I explain that unlocking that code is a kin to picking a lock without the key. It takes time, and happens one "tumbler" at a time, until all of them are lined up and the lock opens.

Because of this, they know I'm going to push, and push hard sometimes. I also tell them that unlocking this code is impossible with negetive reinforcement. One piece of negetive reinforcement is all it takes to "re-spin the tumblers" back to their locked position, causing me to start all over again. Positive reinforcement is what keeps the tumblers in line until they are all lined up, and the unlock code is accomplished.

Once that code has been unlocked in a player, amazing things begin to happen, both on the field, and off.

I have a mission when I coach.........Sometimes I wish more of our school teachers had the same mission.........:highfive:

We've all seen some positive over the top cheerleading coaches and parents.

"Mom, would you please stop! You're embarrassing me!" (Jake -2007 Season)

[Drill]

Wait a minute. You mean yelling at your players doesn't help them? Somebody better tell a lot of folks that they been doing it wrong all this time.


Nothing like a coach who yells and if he makes them run laps, they should be going to the world series.


drill

[SoftballDad]

Heh, heh. I learned a great lesson last year coaching my daughter. She did very well early in the year, being one of the only girls to hit the fence and repeatedly drill the ball game after game. Then, she hit a slump and I reacted by constantly reminding her the fundamentals ... bend your knees, get your bat back, relax, watch the ball.

We were in a machine pitch league and I was typically the first base coach while my colleague was feeding the machine. One game, after my diatribe on getting her in position, he told her "Kirsten, why don't you just smile..." and in came the ball and *crack* went the ball off the bat. The simple step relaxed her and she responded by "naturally" doing the mechanics that I tried to force her to do. Furthermore, it was a trigger for the rest of the year.

Now, eight months later when she's facing a tough test or being challenged, she says "sometimes, all you need to do is smile." She wants "SMILE" to be airbrushed on her helmet for the new year and uses it as a relaxation mechanism.

Sometimes, we all need to take a step back and enjoy the ride, rather than push the train.

[Jake Patterson]

Great story,

I also coach girl's basketball and over the past 5-6 years I have had the privelage of have former college coaches help as assistants. Women down trying to experience basketball with their daughters.

During one particular terrible game my assistant jumps up and calls time catching me off guard. She looke at me and winked. As the girl's came in and the bench surrounded the coach she said in a very stern voice, "OK I know what wrong. Everyone take out your pony tails and redo them higher on your heads. We'll never be able to play defense with pony tails like that! Get them higher!" Confused the girls complied. Coach continued, "OK that look's much better. Let's go get them! Every body in. On three defense!" I sat back and said nothing. When we got back to the bench I said "What does that have to do with playing good defense?" She replied, "Absolutely nothing."

We won. Sometimes just letting them play and getting their minds off the game is all it takes.

[FiveFrameSwing]

On the other side of the coin, yelling out a laundry list of mechanics tweaks will more often than not, send them into the weeds.


Let's make some basic assumptions first.

1: The time for the ball to travel from the pitcher's release to the strike zone is roughly 0.4 second.

2: The time it takes for the batter to go from launch to contact is roughly 5 frames or 0.17 seconds (5 frames / (30 frames/sec)).

That leaves 0.23 seconds for the batter to determine the location of the pitch and differentiate between "go" and "no go".

3: The human brain is a single CPU machine. While the human brain is capable of multi-tasking, it can only remain focused on one thought at any given moment.

The notion here is simple.

The hitter has a short amount of time, rouhly 0.23 seconds. It is not a great idea to give the hitter a diversionary thought when they have so little time to produce a difficult task of hitting a round object squarely with another round object.

p.s.
Feel free to correct my math.

[TG Coach]

Great story,

I also coach girl's basketball and over the past 5-6 years I have had the privelage of have former college coaches help as assistants. Women down trying to experience basketball with their daughters.

During one particular terrible game my assistant jumps up and calls time catching me off guard. She looke at me and winked. As the girl's came in and the bench surrounded the coach she said in a very stern voice, "OK I know what wrong. Everyone take out your pony tails and redo them higher on your heads. We'll never be able to play defense with pony tails like that! Get them higher!" Confused the girls complied. Coach continued, "OK that look's much better. Let's go get them! Every body in. On three defense!" I sat back and said nothing. When we got back to the bench I said "What does that have to do with playing good defense?" She replied, "Absolutely nothing."

We won. Sometimes just letting them play and getting their minds off the game is all it takes.

I had a kid in LL who was wrapped a bit tight. As he seemed to be losing it emotionally on the mound, I walked to the mound and said, "Boogers. Big green slimey boogers." The kid laughed so hard he snorted boogers. Then he asked me what I wanted him to do. My response, "Nothing now." and left. As a high school freshman the kid told me anytime he needs to relax in anything he thinks of boogers.

[GFK]

Let's make some basic assumptions first.

1: The time for the ball to travel from the pitcher's release to the strike zone is roughly 0.4 second.

2: The time it takes for the batter to go from launch to contact is roughly 5 frames or 0.17 seconds (5 frames / (30 frames/sec)).

That leaves 0.23 seconds for the batter to determine the location of the pitch and differentiate between "go" and "no go".

3: The human brain is a single CPU machine. While the human brain is capable of multi-tasking, it can only remain focused on one thought at any given moment.

The notion here is simple.

The hitter has a short amount of time, rouhly 0.23 seconds. It is not a great idea to give the hitter a diversionary thought when they have so little time to produce a difficult task of hitting a round object squarely with another round object.

p.s.
Feel free to correct my math.

Sort of. The brain, according to some, is a dual processor, conscious and subconscious. The subconscious portion works faster. When the player is stressed sufficiently (i.e. coach is yelling out a laundry list of mechanics to remember), conscious thought takes over and makes the performance stiff and mechanical.

As some have have stated, going out to the player and distracting their conscious attention to a pretty girl (or their ponytails) may prevent them from filling their conscious thought with the performance at hand and allow the performance to be run at the subconscious level.

As an aside, if the player has not received enough reps, the motor program for the performance may have never entered the subconscious portions of the brain and still reside in conscious portions. If I understand the research correctly, this will show similar results (stiff, mechanical performance) but not due to stress but due to lack of practice.

[FiveFrameSwing]

Sort of. The brain, according to some, is a dual processor, conscious and subconscious. The subconscious portion works faster. When the player is stressed sufficiently (i.e. coach is yelling out a laundry list of mechanics to remember), conscious thought takes over and makes the performance stiff and mechanical.

As some have have stated, going out to the player and distracting their conscious attention to a pretty girl (or their ponytails) may prevent them from filling their conscious thought with the performance at hand and allow the performance to be run at the subconscious level.

As an aside, if the player has not received enough reps, the motor program for the performance may have never entered the subconscious portions of the brain and still reside in conscious portions. If I understand the research correctly, this will show similar results (stiff, mechanical performance) but not due to stress but due to lack of practice.


Thank you. That makes perfect sense.