![]() ![]() Understand that the player will have very little time between plays to recover. Reinforcement is necessary to help make this process natural for them and to incrementally improve recovery going forward. Did he reset? What were his thoughts on what happened? How did he refocus? In between innings, pull this player and walk through what happened again. Make sure to look through this checklist (or print off this guide!), but here are a few examples of things this player (if they are in the field) should be thinking about to refocus and be ready:Īll of this happens very fast, but we need to be sure there is a teaching moment later. Now that the player is physically focused on the next play, he needs to think through his responsibilities. Observe what is happening around you.īy physically refocusing, the player is training his brain to move on to the next play. Most kids who are going through a mistake, will keep their head down or will look everywhere but where they need to look. They are still thinking about the last play and aren’t thinking through the current situation and their responsibilities. Without refocus, the player is very likely to make another mistake. Now it’s time to get ready for the next pitch. The player has acknowledged the emotional event and reflected on what happened and what he’ll do differently next time. This isn’t a matter of, “I will catch the ball next time.” Did they lose focus? Did they use poor form? What specifically can they do next time to prevent it from happening again? Now it’s important to think about what he will do differently to prevent the same result. The player has now reflected on what happened and whether he did his best. If that’s the case, they need to be honest with themselves about that. They weren’t situationally aware and they didn’t execute their responsibility. If they did their best, they need to acknowledge that.īut sometimes, they weren’t prepared. Sometimes a youth athlete will get emotional when they do everything right, but they simply didn’t get the desired result. We don’t want the player dwelling on the mistake, but they need to think back through what happened. They have very little time between the mistake and the next pitch, so reserve about 10-15 seconds for reflection. Once the player acknowledges the emotional event with a reset, he immediately moves on to Reflect. ![]() Otherwise, all we’re doing is have them sweep this event under the rug like it never happened so that they can keep playing. While we want this player to recover, they also need to learn something from the situation. Ideally, the player will sense this first and tell himself, “Reset!” We need to catch it quickly and acknowledge it with a “Reset.” I am now emotional, and I need to recover in time for the next play.Īfter a player drops the ball, allowing runners to reach safely, he lowers his head and his lip starts to quiver. The “Reset” is simply an acknowledgement of an emotional event. Here’s a process to help youth athletes reset, reflect and refocus after an emotional event… Click To Tweet You can also use creative and fun ways to implement them (similar to the “flush it” example) if necessary. Feel free to use whatever bits and pieces you find helpful. This is why I recommend the “Reset, Reflect and Refocus” approach. It doesn’t necessarily help him learn from the experience or refocus. While I acknowledge this helps, such a response only helps the player clear his mind to move on. In each case, the kids also act this out (like “flushing the toilet”) to help them move on. They’ll “brush it off,” “flush it,” or “clean the slate,” for example. Most coaches have some sort of mechanism they use after a player makes a big mistake in the field that results in emotion. How do you help emotional youth athletes see that how they react impacts their performance, their teammates and their team? How do we help them recover during an emotional moment? But that was primarily concept without much process. I’ve written about this more generally when talking about becoming baseball players instead of just kids playing baseball. We expect these kids to be emotional - they’re kids! - but we also want to help them channel that emotion constructively. One of the biggest challenges in youth baseball for coaches, parents and players alike is learning to manage emotions.
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