Quote:
Originally Posted by Swaggs
It sounds like he is getting burnt out. I work with kids and it is relatively common when they spend too much time on one activity because (like anything else) there are typically a lot of quicker, easier gains up front and then, making a little bit of improvement can require a lot of time and effort. Hopefully you guys can find some middle ground between him completely giving up the sport and being full bore.
Maybe it would be a good idea to take a "holiday" from playing and try to get into something else for a few months or establish a set amount of time per day/week to do drills.
Here is an overview on burnout in youth sports - it is definitely a thing:
Burnout In Kids Sports | Children's Hospital Colorado |
It does read like some of the things in there. It's problematic in that some of those overlap with his 'gifted' status but it is something I'll need to keep an eye on.
The season has ended and the team's on hiatus so now it's just practicing and trying to get rid of the 'fear of being hit by the ball' until the end of January when Try-Outs begin again.
Only playing a singular sport is new to us since he had always done Wrestling too until 1 year ago but now it's just baseball which is fortuitous because we'd have quit anything that was indoors.
FWIW, today he was a new kid. Enthused and focusing on the Virtuous cycle I had talked to him about wherein proper effort and prep before a rep can result possibly in a good outcome which will encourage him to do the same next time. He was caught in an obsessive vicious cycle with the HBP stuff and that happens with him in school on studies too when he's struggling on something. He didn't seem to be scared by a pitch at all and prior to his BP the coach was not going to pitch but use a machine but when I walked in with about :15 minutes left he was throwing to him and the kid was barreling. The coach commented that it was like the kid he knew had somehow come back today.